Part two of a three-part look at school security

Every morning, millions of American children head off to school, which ideally is a home away from home. But just as all homes aren’t safe, students at school can be inviting targets for predators and the deranged.

This blog post, the second of three in a series, examines ways our life safety and asset protection systems can help protect entire campuses.

Protecting campuses is more complicated than protecting individual schools, but our Integrated Solutions can link security features among multiple buildings, gymnasiums and school grounds.

The basic features we have described in previous school security bylines and blogs are the same, but protecting an entire campus means increasing interconnectivity and deciding how school administrators want to alert other parts of the campus to threats. If a private or public school campus has an elementary school, middle school and high school, for instance, you need a way to alert the entire campus if a threat emerges in any single building. Customized messaging can blast the warning in multiple ways – to phones, smartboards, computer screens and elsewhere. Video can also be disseminated from the pertinent site and viewed by anyone on campus who has appropriate access to the surveillance system.

In some systems, administrators can lock down entire campuses – or individual buildings – with one swipe of a card at a reader for access Access Control. It is also possible for those in charge to lock down an individual area or direct students and staff to evacuate one building or area and shelter in place in another.

All of these options should be considered in cooperation with school administrations and law enforcement. If a building is locked down, for instance, will law enforcement be locked out and unable to confront the intruder?

The best security plans involve integrators, administrators and police sitting down together. Let us know what you want, and we can determine the best approach and the best value for you. We have many tools, and you have many options.

Contact Gallaher today to discuss our range of school security products.