Recognizing the importance of protecting students, teachers, and staff can make a significant difference. Here are some of the most basic ways to ensure school security.
Keeping your school’s campus secure should be one of the highest priorities of any administrative staff. However, it’s understandable that not every school can afford to do this. Even so, recognizing the importance of protecting students, teachers, and staff can make a significant difference. Here are some of the most basic ways to ensure school security.
Securing Educational Spaces
One simple way to start ensuring school security is by securing educational spaces. For instance, all classroom doors should be equipped with locks that can’t unlock from the outside. Although it’s sometimes necessary to have a master key as an emergency fail-safe, these doors shouldn’t be unlockable with a regular key. These doors should be fitted with metal frames, strong cores, and rated to withstand the devastating effects of a fire. The doors on the perimeter of the school should also feature access control system that can help monitor whenever visitors enter and exit the campus.
Securing educational spaces goes beyond the classroom. Other areas of a school building, such as the library and gym, should be similarly protected. Security fences should be installed around the fence to help protect the school community.
Improving Campus Communications
Another way to improve school safety is to upgrade the communication methods that serve the campus. A public address system should be able to reach all parts of a school, even the portables that are not part of the main school. Two-way intercoms and reliable handheld radio systems also need to be considered as ways to enhance communication capabilities. It’s easy to depend on smartphones and other mobile devices, but in emergencies, they may not always be reliable.
Simplifying Classroom Responses
A third way to improve school security is to make classroom responses easier to understand and practice. Lockdown procedures are just as important as fire drill procedures. With changes in the teaching staff, unpredictable student movement on a given day and the presence of substitute teachers who might not know what to do, making the classroom responses as quick and easy as possible to train will benefit your school.
Assessing Behavioral Concerns
One last suggestion is to monitor the behavioral concerns of students, staff, faculty, and administrators. Paying attention to warning signs can prevent incidents caused by current students, former students, or anyone else involved in the school’s life that could become a threat.
Trust the Professionals at ARK Systems
Located in Columbia, Maryland, ARK Systems provides unsurpassed quality and excellence in the security industry, from system design all the way through to installation. We handle all aspects of security with local and remote locations. With over 30 years in the industry, ARK Systems is an experienced security contractor. Trust ARK to handle your most sensitive data storage, surveillance, and security solutions. Contact ARK Systems at 1-800-995-0189 or click here today. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter as well!