Other than a place for learning, a school is often a highly populated facility that’s filled with students and faculty alike. Many of the people who roam these halls are young people who are attending classes and interacting with their fellow students. It is of utmost importance that every campus remains a safe place for them. This ensures a comfortable learning experience, and parents can rest assured that their kids are safe throughout the day.
Of course, one common safety measure in every school is to limit entrance to the campus. That is why ID cards with custom lanyards can be very useful for identifying individuals with a valid reason to enter the premises. While this does make for a proper security measure, there is still more that schools can do to improve security for the community.
Here are some of the best practices to achieve ideal levels of security for a school.
Assess the Current State of Security
Every university has different circumstances. Some may be building their security from scratch while others may be looking to improve. Either way, the best way to start is to know where security is lacking at the moment. The university administration should conduct an evaluation of risks and threats in the school. This will determine if the school needs to procure or set up additional security measures like hiring campus guards or requiring students to wear their ID cards at all times.
Cover Entry Points and Restrict Access
The primary weakness for any school is their campus access. Because there are often hundreds or thousands of people who come in every day, it can be difficult to track every individual who can enter. A quick solution is to mandate IDs with the institution’s custom lanyard. However, most schools already do this, so it is a matter of implementing further measures here.
For example, security personnel can be hired to guard the entry points. There can also be limitations on guests—such as alumni and parents—who can visit per day. Likewise, there can be caps on how many people are allowed at a time in various areas and facilities.
Develop Security Procedures
There are some extreme situations that simply cannot be prevented with complete certainty. For these cases, it is better to develop procedures for the community to practice in the event of such emergencies. Having set procedures on what to do during emergency situations like a fire or an earthquake can greatly ensure the safety of everyone on campus.
The community should be educated on these situations so that everybody can likewise contribute to maintaining security within the school grounds. There should be regular campus-wide practice sessions for executing these protocols. This ensures a level of order no matter what happens, also minimizing further mishaps during an emergency.
Campus-wide Communications
Modern technology has made it far easier for groups of people to keep in touch. This same technology should also be utilized to keep the community within a school connected with one another. In particular, there should be accessible communication lines between faculty, administration, and security and for students to reach them too. This will keep everyone in the loop for emergencies.
Outside of scenarios that need immediate action, schools should also provide channels for people to raise complaints and issues. Administration and security personnel alone will not be able to cover all potential weak points around the school. Members of the community will likely encounter areas that need improvements in security as they participate in school activities.
Implementing Better Electronics
While technology is most useful for communication services, it can also be used to greatly enhance security measures on campus. There are a number of ways that technology can be used to achieve these improvements. For one, IDs can have specialized technology like RFID chips that can be verified at all entry points into the school.
Security personnel can also keep watch of more areas at once through surveillance cameras and other such systems. These can be installed at campus weak points and other blind spots that are difficult for staff to keep an eye on.
Digital and Virtual Safety
One of the more modern security issues is digital safety. Whether online or onsite, education these days tends to rely heavily on virtual platforms and online services. While these definitely enhance the quality of education and dissemination of materials and information, these also provide openings for digital threats. Schools will have to make sure to practice virtual safety as well.
Other than mandating online etiquette, there are other practical measures into which school administrations can invest in. For example, schoolwide VPNs can prevent malicious entities from attempting to steal information from students and the institution.
The school can also create their own online platform instead for full control rather than relying on third-party applications. If this is not viable, the administration can at least mandate specific platforms and services for classes to use. But they should still have protocols to address digital intruders who may hijack classes or school-related correspondences.
All of these suggestions may appear quite extensive, and it may take time to properly implement them. However, it guarantees the safety of students, and it assures an environment that’s conducive to learning. Likewise, it provides comfortable spaces for students and teachers to engage with each other in the classroom. Hopefully, these practices will prove useful for improving the school’s security.