Safety within our schools is a top priority for parents, school staff, and our team here at Sonitrol Security. We want to keep our students and schools safe from harm’s way and ensure that parents can trust that when they send their children to school that they will return home safe and sound. If you are a school administrator or official, it’s critical to implement the proper safety precautions and security systems to keep your schools protected. Today we want to share our expert advice on the top 5 security measures that can make an actual impact on your school’s safety.
5 Security Measures that Impact School Safety
1. Control Visitor Access and Screening
As a public or private institution, you should be in control of every person who enters and exits the school building in order to keep both the students and faculty safe. Monitoring any visitors, both in the parking lot and entrances into the building, decreases the chance that a dangerous, unexpected, or armed person enters into the school.
Using video surveillance and an intercom system will allow school officials to easily detect who visitors are and determine if they are permitted and safe to come inside. This will also prevent face-to-face contact with visitors if they are suspected to be harmful or threatening.
Our managed access control system saves you the trouble and expense of locks, helps you to track movement throughout your school, and allows you to restrict access by location and/or time of day. All access control activity is monitored 24 hours-a-day from our central station by security professionals. We can track your employees, visitors, and contractors and their use of any facilities on the school grounds. In addition, our access control can manage HVAC, elevators, and lighting systems to ensure all systems are cohesively operating.
2. Implement a Security System and Emergency Plan
An all-encompassing school security system should and will meet all of your school’s safety needs. From video surveillance and managed access control to audio detection and fire prevention, a security system should cover all of your bases when it comes to safety. Here are some of the main features that a strong security system will include:
- A Panic Button: so that teachers or students are able to alert the police or school officials of a suspected break-in or dangerous person
- Video Monitoring and Audio Detection: for real-time video and image surveillance of visitors, employees, and students within the school grounds
- Fire Alarm System: alert authorities of a fire and prevent loss/damages as much as possible
All of these features are a part of our security system at Sonitrol. These elements play an integral role in ensuring safety within a school or learning institution.
3. Cascade the Plan to The Community
Keeping children safe is everyone’s’ responsibility. In order for your security system to be effective, parents, teachers, administrators, and anyone involved need to be informed on best security practices and security system use. Making your school’s community aware of the security plan that you have in place can prevent an attack before it even occurs. In addition, providing this information will ease the minds of both the students and their parents. Overall, your plan for maximum security efforts will increase the confidence of your entire community.
4. Increase Situational Awareness
If you are a leader in the school systems, safety training and teachings should be incorporated into students’ and faculty’s learning. Increasing situational awareness across the entirety of the school will allow students to know what, when, and where something is occurring in their environment. Be particularly alert during times of heavy traffic in the hallways such as arrival and dismissal. The sooner a threat is detected, the faster it can get addressed and resolved.
5. Evaluate Security Needs Periodically
Even effective security systems need to be reevaluated and assessed for efficiency from time to time. Patterns in crime rates fluctuate and the safety needs of your school may shift with these changes. With the growth of the school and the communities in which we live, it is important to adapt to the natural changes we encounter over time. New technologies must be integrated into your current systems to adjust to advances within the market as well.
Sonitrol has all of the security measures you need to complete the five steps we mentioned above. We have seen these safety precautions in action and can attest to the power that they have in a school setting. Keep your students, staff, and community safe this year and every year in the future with our systems. Contact us today to get started on your safety journey.