Schools do a great job of educating our children and preparing them for success in the real world; however, when it comes to their own education on security preparedness, many do not make the grade.
With an alarming rise of active shooter incidents taking place right on school grounds, along with gang violence and bullying, school districts throughout our country need to be educated on how to do a better job on being prepared for emergency situations. In addition to staying up to date on the latest security technology, many need help creating an emergency action plan that can help save lives in the long run.
There is no group better positioned to be a trusted advisor and authority on the latest security technology available, while providing education, than security integrators. In fact, integrators should be proactive and vigilant on educating schools on what they can do now to help prepare for an incident in the future.
TVRA for Schools
Effective security preparedness in a school includes the right mix of planning, training and the right technology; in fact, these three elements are the building blocks for a school to build a stronger security foundation.
The first step to securing a school is to understand the current status of the facility. Once a school understands where it is in terms of safety and security best practices, a plan can be created to enhance strengths and mitigate weaknesses.
In order to assess the current safety and security status of a school, a Threat, Vulnerability and Risk Assessment (TVRA) should be conducted of each building – consisting of an “outside-in” examination of each location, including parking areas, landscaping, local emergency services, surrounding neighborhoods, crime statistics, exterior cameras, parent pickup/drop off areas, signage, and rally points of evacuations, alarm systems, roof access and lighting. Interior building access points, security equipment for doors and windows, security monitors/personnel, visitor management systems, emergency notification procedures, lock-down procedures and communication equipment should all be examined for effectiveness.
Once the review is complete, a scalable long-term and short-term plan can be made for mitigating any security deficiencies and a roadmap to better security can be created.
Training Staff
A crucial part of the trusted provider relationship with a school should be training, and it is vitally important to include everyone in the school district and not leave any staff out of the loop. That means including secretarial, administration, custodial, bus drivers, support/lunch staff and teachers as well as security/safety officers.
Integrators should provide training and education on a wide array of security issues, but especially active shooter response, school investigations, crisis in the classroom, bus security, cybersecurity, bomb threats, threat assessment and evacuation.
Of course, integrators can also help with monthly drills to test fire and alarm systems, along with other possible incidents such as bomb threats or active shooter events. Training is a critical element in the roadmap to a safer school and is one of the important building blocks to a stronger security foundation.
Facilitating Communication and Cooperation
Addressing weaknesses in emergency procedures and learning how to identify potentially dangerous students using a threat matrix are important steps that schools can take as preventative measures; however, what happens when an actual event does take place?
Is your education customer ready to deal with the situation and communicate efficiently with local law enforcement? In fact, most schools unfortunately do not have a strong communication process in place and are failing in this area.
As a resource within our community and expert in school safety and security, A+ Technology & Security Solutions Inc., has worked closely with school districts and universities across the New York Metro area and beyond on developing an action plan to tie educational institutions directly with their local police department in the event of an emergency.
Taking the Lead
As President of A+ Technology & Security, we started to see cracks in the foundation when it came to security and communication in school districts. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, we conducted focus groups to learn more about what was important to schools when it came to security and helped to develop best practices along with a roadmap for action.
As things progressed, we quickly became a go-to-resource for helping to improve security preparedness within school districts across the nation. Our unique approach enabled us to become a valuable resource within our community while also establishing ourselves as recognized experts in school safety and security.
We continue to preach that with the right technology in place, proper planning and training, and collaboration with law enforcement, schools can build a strong foundation for security.
Creating a School Security Community
I firmly believe that a community that is educated is a community that can be better prepared for the worst-case scenario. After being in business for over 29 years, we wanted to share our knowledge and experience along with our partners’ expertise with our community.
Our goal was to create a local community and formal program that promoted collaborative thinking and thought leadership in the arena of security preparedness. That included the creation of a quarterly educational program at our Long Island, N.Y., corporate showroom.
Our approach includes focusing on anyone involved with security decisions and planning for schools – which includes administrators and security personnel across K-12, higher education, government, healthcare and even the corporate community.
In 2017, we launched a series of security preparedness seminars and created a formal set of educational sessions focusing on helping schools, municipalities and businesses to collaborate and learn more about safety and security preparedness and the associated security technology solutions available to help them.
We also partnered with various security experts and law enforcement professionals, as well as security manufacturers, to demonstrate how proper planning, training and security technologies – when deployed correctly – can help schools and business communities improve communications and provide better situational awareness in a security event. Our main objective by offering these seminars is to go far beyond simply providing security solutions.
We have become advocates on promoting the importance of communication with the community and have worked diligently on bringing together schools and law enforcement through these educational seminars. Our plan moving forward is to hold these seminars quarterly and focus on topics including:
- Crisis preparation and prevention;
- Active shooter prevention and response;
- Collaboration with local law enforcement;
- and many more.
Our goal is to create a regular series that can make a huge impact in all aspects of security and our community. As 2018 approaches, we plan to partner with even more security experts and will host our next event on Dec. 1. Our current focus is to broaden our reach to a regional and national level where we can continue to be a go-to-resource, sharing more insight that helps improve security preparedness across the country.
David Antar is President of metro New York-based security integrator A+ Technology & Security Solutions Inc. (www.aplustechnology.com).
