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Feeling Safe

Leveraging technology in the education sector to create safer, healthier learning environments

• By Christopher Buecksler, Derek Peterson
• June 17, 2020

The best environment for learning is one where students,
teachers and staff feel safe. With increasing incidents nationally
of vaping and bullying, plus the ever-present threat of an
active shooter situation, school administrators and their
respective security teams face far greater challenges to provide
safety levels enjoyed by previous generations than their predecessors
could ever have imagined.

Safety and Health Issues

Fortunately, new technologies are available to allow administrators to
manage the safety and health issues in schools. These tools also allow
them to make better and smarter decisions by leveraging data that
they collect to understand where incidents of concern, such as vaping,
smoking, bullying, graffiti and other inappropriate behaviors are taking
place, and how frequently.

It’s up to administrators and their security teams to develop, implement
and practice plans that mesh seamlessly with technology. Technology
is part of the solution for managing emergency events and
preventing, reducing and managing problematic activities and behaviors
such as vaping, bullying, fighting and vandalism.

One of the important keys to this is the consolidation of information
into one easy to use platform that can be used to generate school-wide
emergency alerts, respond to and track internal incidents and
then generate reports following those events. Having immediate
access to these powerful tools at all times is crucial – especially in a
quickly escalating crisis situation where there are any number of
moving parts and one person out of the loop or receiving inaccurate
information can lead to fatalities. Police, fire, emergency personnel as
well as school staffers, teachers, students and parents need to receive
accurate information simultaneously, in a timely fashion, throughout
each stage of the crisis or emergency situation.

Powerful Technology

Implementing powerful, yet easy-to-use technology leads to greater
efficiencies because there is a shorter learning curve and training is
easy. Having a unified and automated alert mechanism is key when it
comes to coordinating fire, police and emergency rescue efforts. When
these automated responses are included in technology that staffers are
already using, the effectiveness of the transition is enhanced.

This article originally appeared in the May June 2020 issue of Campus Security & Life Safety.