At a time when students and teachers face more threats than ever in schools, reducing the risks associated with in-school violence is a major fiscal, legal and moral challenge for school officials.

 

According to the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS), schools face an array of challenges; from parental custody issues to gangs and drugs related crimes—more of which are listed in our article: How-to balance stakeholders and budget when introducing new safety solutions

In the Digital Age, Schools are vulnerable to Cyber-attacks, with new figures showing that 20% of education establishments have been targeted in the past 2 years. Many schools, either independently or working with law enforcement and private security have plans in place to deal with a range of threats.

The challenge for school security chiefs is to pull these pieces into a usable format that provides a guide for current and future security teams, including ways to train staff on new procedures.

Risk Assessments

A risk assessment is the first step toward developing a comprehensive security plan. This involves defining the criticality and vulnerability of the asset being protected and then determining the likelihood of an incident occurring. Determining criticality and vulnerability are relatively straightforward missions, but the concept of probability can be more difficult.

Trend Analysis

Determining probability involves an experienced review of trends, which requires collecting data from a variety of public and private sources. The key to assessing this data is to begin locally, on the campus, and then proceed to national trends.

It’s essential to note that there is no way to predict incident reliability – the aim of a security chief undertaking this should be to identify trends that might indicate an increasing probability of a particular risk.

The following can be used as a tool to help security staff determine the probability of an incident occurring:

• Campus: Review incident report trends for at least 36 months

• Locale and city: Review crime data from local law enforcement for the surrounding neighborhood and city

• Screening procedures: How is hiring conducted? While employees are generally screened for criminal records and drug use, are vendors, and contractors screened at the same level?

• Anonymous tip lines: Enabling students, staff members, parents, and the community to alert administrators to perceived and actual threats anonymously can help identify an incident probability

• Social media monitoring: In an era when social media has been used to orchestrate social unrest and attacks, such tracking can provide important information that can be utilized to identify risks

Internal Cyber-Threats

Schools need to know how to responsibly manage the risk that comes with the type of technologies that they employ, integrating appropriate measures into their training.

Security Chiefs should instill policies that employees must agree to, before being given a network login, to reduce internal violations.

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) – An AUP stipulates the constraints and practices that an employee using IT assets must agree to, to access the corporate network. Employees should be given an AUP to read and sign before being granted a network ID.

Access Control Policy (ACP) – The ACP outlines the access available to employees concerning an organization’s data and information systems. This includes access control and user access standards, as well as how unattended workstations should be secured and how access is removed when an employee leaves the organization.

When training staff on new security procedures there is no ‘crystal ball,’ and risk assessment and mitigation can never be risk elimination. With the right training and technology, risks can be reduced, and schools made safer within an ongoing process.

Every school has different challenges. If you’re looking for new ways to protect your campus, Sabre can help. Call us at 212-974-1700 or book a free consultation here.

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After several high-profile school shootings and the frenzied media coverage that has followed, there’s no denying that school security is more concerning than ever to students, teachers, and parents.

 

Pressure from local communities and social media to ramp up security in K-12 schools have grown considerably in the wake of the Parkland shooting in February 2018, which left 17 people dead and a further 17 injured.

In a rush to find solutions, schools across the country have pursued aggressive safety measures to prevent violence on their campuses – and as consequence, the global schools and campus security market is expected to reach $2.54 billion by the end of 2023, a growth rate of 19.7%.

Too Much Panic

Since Parkland, some schools are turning to unorthodox tactics, from bulletproof whiteboards to lockdown drills and simulated attacks. The National Association of School Psychologists has cautioned American schools against preparing for shootings with simulated attacks, as they could end up “traumatizing young students.”

Clearly, school security needs to be looked at, and evolve in tandem with the growing number of threats K-12 schools face, which we discuss in our previous articles.

Corporate Tactics

Unlike school security, corporate safety takes a proactive approach that meets the needs of multiple stakeholders, including that of being a good neighbor. Subsequently, companies around the country have invested in dynamic, high technology, security systems to safeguard operations and maintain control.

Perhaps adopting a corporate-style approach would provide schools with robust, reliable and sensible solutions to tackling campus criminality, utilizing technology and reducing the fears many parents, students and teachers have. The Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) aims to do just that, through implementing corporate security measures across schooling environments.

But what are these corporate strategies and what are the benefits?

1: Lower Operational Costs

A corporate security strategy usually starts with an integrated video security installation across the board – cameras outside elevators, toilets, next to trash receptacles, entrances, storage closets, you name it.

With subtle video security cameras acting as watchdogs, students are likely to feel more at ease and less intimidated– reducing crime from the inside-out.

2: Mobile Access

Heads of security at schools can’t monitor every area all of the time. With cameras, you can have eyes where they need them most. This is something that corporate security has adopted for some time, with companies investing in remote access systems to monitor their production continuously and consistently, from anywhere.

Security chiefs can oversee every area of the school and monitor unusual activity and incidents through apps which enable access to video footage from their home computer, tablet or smartphone. This makes it easier to implement a rapid response.

This versatility means unattended sites can be safeguarded from a centralized location, which would provide heads of school security with peace of mind – even when they’re off-campus.

4: Improving Data Control

Schools are just as vulnerable to cyber-attacks as large corporations.

The need to be vigilant around data collection and storage is heightened in the wake of recent hacking scandals – take Uber’s data crisis in 2016, where the personal information of 57 million users and 600,000 drivers were exposed.

However, this issue is especially concerning when children are at risk, including the threat from parents where there are custody disputes or the risk of kidnapping.

With corporate security systems, this is made all too easy. Enhanced access control provides a first line of defense to deter people from entering restricted areas, and clear confirmation of intrusion means less ambiguity – reducing false alarms and wasted time. Furthermore, such systems have nuanced methods of data collection, generating a clear audit trail and record of people accessing areas storing sensitive data.

Are Schools Getting Safer?

School safety, like the education of children, is a long-term enterprise. PASS realizes that not every school system, even those in the private sector, has the financial resources to invest in extensive security enhancements, yet they all face daily pressure to ensure that students are protected.

Here at Sabre, we can help you strike a balance between budgetary and security concerns. We work with you to clearly define your security system’s objectives while implementing an integrated plan adhering to your budget. We can develop custom security solutions for your school and its locations, ensuring your security system works for you.

Every school has different challenges. If you’re looking for new ways to protect your campus, Sabre can help. Call us at 212-974-1700 or book a free consultation here.

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Risk knows no boundaries. Security chiefs need to take every reasonable precaution to mitigate as many chances as possible while balancing the needs of a range of stakeholders and budgetary limitations.

According to the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS), schools and hospitals face similar challenges, including:

• Burglary and theft (school resources, students stealing from other students, break-ins)
• Internal theft (money, resources, confidential information);
• Violence (everything from bullying to fights, rape, knife, and gun crime);
• Drugs (buying, selling and using on-site).

Schools also face specific threats that include the following:

• Parental custody issues
• Unsupervised visitors
• Gangs, drugs and related crime/violence (even in private schools)
• Before and after school programs and sports
• Unsupervised visitors on-site
• Contractors on-site
• High-traffic times of the day (opening, closing, lunch)
• Risk of kidnapping and sexual predators
• Disciplinary issues and violence
• Community using facilities, or trespassing

Every one of these are risks that security chiefs need to plan for. These days, most private schools already have a comprehensive security plan in place, created to mitigate these and other risk concerns. This plan should cover everything from access control to ongoing training and awareness for security staff, teachers, and local law enforcement.

But as risks and threats evolve, so do the solutions designed to combat them. It can be challenging justifying the need to introduce new solutions while balancing the needs of stakeholders and budgets.

Since Parkland, some schools have started turning themselves into fortresses. With armor and more gun drills than ever before. How schools are designed is also changing, reducing the number of entrances, while increasing the number of safe exits and cameras. It would cost billions to make schools as secure as prisons or some government facilities, which wouldn’t be ideal for students and parents.

In New Jersey, for example, there is now a safety academy, closer working partnerships with law enforcement and a designated safety specialist who receives ongoing training. This model, alongside private support, could work well across the country, providing budgets are increased to prevent the risk from shooters and violence in schools.

How to Introduce New Security Solutions

Start with a risk assessment. Whatever the threat, or perceived threat, whether internal or external, you need a clear idea what the risks are or downside risk of failing to implement a new security solution.

Maybe you’ve heard that a peer school in the area has already put something similar in place. Find out what made them try something new. In the same area, with a comparable student population, facing similar threats, surely there is a reason? How they justified something and how you will, will be different, but this is information worth finding out.

Next, after assessing various risk factors, come up with a probability ratio, so that you can present a clear business case. Review trends, starting with local patterns (on campus, go back at least 36 months) and progressing to national trends so that you understand why a new solution is needed. Private schools are businesses. Although the stakeholders you serve all want the same thing: to keep students, teachers, parents, and visitors safe, principals and boards also need to watch budgets and profitability.

This balanced approach for risk mitigation and stakeholder management is why PASS recommends a layered and phased approach. Depending on budgets, this may be the best approach a school can make to introduce new solutions, without requiring additional budget.

After you’ve got approval, introduce a new solution in such a way to make it visible to stakeholders. Train new security staff and teachers, as needed. Demonstrate new capabilities to make those you are protecting aware that security is driving new initiatives forward to safeguard them.

Every school has different challenges. If you’re looking for new ways to protect your campus, Sabre can help. Call us at 212-974-1700 or book a free consultation here.

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Keeping schools safe is a challenge every security director, facilities manager and school administrator faces across the country.

School shootings are a far too familiar tragedy, with other more common dangers always around the corner, making it necessary to employ a watchful series of security solutions to protect pupils and staff. Schools can’t risk a poorly designed, inefficient system that increases costs while failing to provide the level of security required.

With every public and private school across the country facing similar challenges, the Security Industry Association (SIA) teamed up with the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA) to create the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) in 2013. PASS is designed to help K-12 schools implement the most effective security technology and systems possible, with a lot of seasoned security professionals contributing to the organization and documents they’ve published.

In this and other articles, Sabre Integrated wants to help safety personnel in schools make smart choices about how they deploy and recommend the investment of resources, including technology, to ensure the schools they protect are safer from a complex series of threats.

 Threats Schools Encounter

Every school faces a different series of unique threats. And yet, whether public or private, most schools are battling a series of overlapping and common threats:

• Discipline is difficult to enforce. Students can pose as much, if not more, of a danger to themselves and teachers than an external threat.

• Liability is a substantial challenge. Teachers, administrators, and security staff need to understand what they can/can’t do.

• Safety is no longer the sole responsibility of security staff and fire marshals; in many cases, liability is distributed amongst teams and layers of managers. Clear guidance isn’t always easy to find.

• Threats are higher and more complex. From guns and knives to violence, drugs, even cyber- attacks and malicious hacking. Although the goals are still the same: to safeguard students and staff, the risks against them are evolving, making security a complex and moving target.

 This is the reality of keeping a school safe in the 21st century.

Parents expect their children to be safe at school—many have chosen your school based on your safety record. Teachers need to feel safe at work and know that students are protected. Principals and boards need to have confidence in those managing safety, as do those that directly manage security in the school.

Budgets come into the equation, too. No matter how much money a school has, there are always going to be questions whether enough is being done? Whether resources are being deployed effectively? As security chief, these are questions that you will need to answer, or topics that should be raised as threats evolve, or when budgets are re-evaluated annually.

Active Shooter Incidents

Experts and most safety chiefs would agree that active shooter incidents are statistically rare; although there have been enough tragedies in recent years to make this a high priority to prevent and defend against in every school.

Between 2000-17, there were 250 active shooter incidents in the United States (21% of these incidents were in educational facilities), resulting in 799 deaths, according to an FBI report. More shootings have happened since, with many parents and students fearing the situation is getting worse. With national tragedies such as Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland, the fear that a pupil or ex-pupil will walk into a school with an assault rifle keeps head teachers awake at night.

And yet, violence that doesn’t involve a gun is far more common. During the 2015-16 school year, there were approximately 750,000 incidents of victimization (theft and non-fatal victimization) that took place in public schools, according to the government-sponsored report, Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2017.

How Should K-12 School Safety Evolve?

Since Parkland, administrators and superintendents have been asking for guidelines that maintain the same standards across states. Private schools have been taking similar actions. It is difficult to balance the needs of making an environment feel safe and welcoming, a place to learn, and turning a school into a fortress.

From bulletproof glass and armor to active shooter drills and other preventative measures, schools are actively implementing new safeguards to protect students and teachers. Risk, of course, can never be eliminated, only managed. Safety personnel needs to take situational and operational decisions based on real and potential threats in their school, then implement procedures and use technology that will mitigate and reduce risks as much as possible. More about how we can help with that in the next few articles.

Every school has different challenges. If you’re looking for new ways to protect your campus, Sabre can help. Call us at 212-974-1700 or book a free consultation here.

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