|
By Pamela Perini
School security is an important part of creating an environment for 21st century learning, not an institutionalized building. This involves more than simply having school resource officers in the building or locked doors. Effective school security has safety policies and procedures that are enforced and combines them with smart design, responsible technology, trained staff, and cooperation among students, faculty, staff, administration parents, and the community.
One very important part of school security is controlling access to school buildings. Schools can use secure entrances and vestibules, visitor screening and check-in systems, and identification badges and credentials to help ensure that only authorized people enter the school and access certain areas. Inside those school buildings sit our most valuable assets: children. Staff should also know how to respond when someone enters a building without permission, or if someone“ looks out of place”.
School Security: Keeping The Students Safe
Emergency preparedness is another key part of school security. Schools should have clear plans for emergencies such as active assailants, fires, severe weather, medical emergencies, and other threats. Regular drills can help students and staff understand what to do without creating unnecessary fear. Emergency plans should also consider students and staff with disabilities or other special needs. Considerations for the communications outside of the school should there be an incident is very important as well. How will first responders be notified? How will the other schools in the district be notified?
Technology can also improve school safety. Security cameras, communication systems, alarms, and emergency notification tools can help schools identify problems and communicate quickly. Technology should accompany and compliment the plans, procedures and processes already established by the school and the district.
Students themselves also have an important role in maintaining a safe school. They should report serious safety concerns to a trusted adult and follow school rules designed to protect everyone. At the same time, schools should make it easy for students to speak up without feeling embarrassed or afraid of being ignored. Special considerations regarding
|
grade levels are terrifically important. You cannot expect an elementary student and a high school student to behave the same way.
Ultimately, school security is about creating a safe and welcoming environment rather than making students feel constantly watched, afraid or nervous. The best approach combines sensible security measures, both electronic and not, with strong relationships, preparedness, communication, and respect. When students, teachers, families, and school administration and leaders work together, schools can become safer places where everyone has the opportunity to succeed, without being institutionalized.
Designing Safer Schools: Security Without Sacrificing a Sense of Belonging
A safe school should do more than keep danger out. It should help students feel secure, connected, and ready to learn. The best school designs therefore treat safety as part of the educational environment— not as a collection of fences, cameras, and locked doors added after the building is finished.
We often focus on cameras and devices for school security, but an additional useful tool in the tool box for consideration is Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design( CPTED). It uses features of the physical and architectural environment— such as visibility, access control, territorial definition, and maintenance— to reduce opportunities for harmful behavior. Federal and FEMA guidance has applied these principles to school facilities for decades.
Start with visibility
Good visibility allows teachers, administrators, students, and visitors to naturally see what is happening around them. Windows overlooking courtyards, well-placed entrances, good lighting, and layouts that reduce hidden corners can increase informal supervision.
Visibility needs to be designed carefully. More glass, for example, can improve everyday surveillance while creating other vulnerabilities in certain emergencies. CISA( Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a Federal Agency) emphasizes that security decisions should consider the particular risks and functions of each space rather than applying a single solution everywhere. Examples would be areas of assembly that house many students at one time, or an outdoor play ground that has students potentially exposed to a myriad of risks. Another example includes considerations for a Pre-K school versus a High School. Different security scenarios do not have“ one size fits all” applications.
Create clear, controlled entrances
Schools should make it obvious where visitors, students and staff enter into and
|
move through the building. Signage is critical. A well-designed entrance can concentrate visitor access, provide staff with good visibility, and separate public areas from instructional spaces. A great architect will be able to separate the entrance from school and academic areas with proper design.
The goal isn’ t to make the school feel like a fortress. Instead, circulation should naturally guide people toward appropriate areas while making unauthorized movement more difficult. This is the CPTED principle of natural access control.
Design the campus in layers
Safety is stronger when it doesn’ t depend on a single barrier or system. People, technology and operations combined are the best approach and strategy. A campus can have several overlapping layers: the surrounding property, parking and pedestrian areas, building entrances, interior circulation, classrooms, and specialized spaces.
Each layer can provide opportunities to detect, deter, delay, respond( and recover) to threats. CISA’ s school-security guidance specifically recommends a layered approach to physical security and vulnerability assessment.
A layered design also allows schools to compartmentalize parts of a building when necessary without turning every space into a permanently restricted zone. The American Institute of Architects’ school-design work similarly recommends flexible layouts that can isolate particular areas during an emergency while maintaining welcoming learning environments during normal operations. Many schools rent out their indoor athletic and performance facilities, and being able to compartmentalize allows the academic portions of the school to be shut down while the gym or auditorium are being used.
|
Don’ t forget psychological safety
Physical security is only one part of school safety. An environment dominated by barriers, surveillance, and intimidating security equipment can undermine students’ sense of comfort and belonging.
Research on school design has argued for balancing security with psychological well-being. CPTED can provide relatively unobtrusive security measures while supporting natural light, connection to
|
nature, social interaction, and a positive school climate.
That means a safer school might include welcoming courtyards, clearly defined gathering spaces, counseling areas that offer privacy, accessible outdoor spaces, and classrooms arranged to encourage relationships— not simply more locks and cameras.
Design for everyday safety, too
School safety encompasses much more than extreme violence. Designers should consider bullying, accidents, traffic conflicts, unauthorized access, poor lighting, isolated spaces, fire and other emergencies, and the safety of students with disabilities. Designing systems that can provide forensic details and analysis can dissuade potential occupants from doing nefarious acts.
A safety assessment should therefore examine the whole campus— including approaches to the school and surrounding streets with trajectory analysis— not just the building itself. Federal schoolfacility guidance recommends mapping access points and evaluating visibility, access control, and territorial definition throughout the site.
Make security part of the architecture
The strongest approach is to involve architects, educators, students, facilities staff, security professionals, emergency responders, and community members before major design decisions are finalized.
A successful school should be secure without feeling institutionalized, open without feeling uncontrolled, and flexible without being chaotic.
When security is considered early, it can be integrated into circulation, landscaping, lighting, building organization, doors, communications, and supervision. When it is added at the end, schools may be forced to rely disproportionately on conspicuous technology and barriers.
Ultimately, designing safer schools is an exercise in balance. A successful school should be secure without feeling institutionalized, open without feeling uncontrolled, and flexible without being chaotic. The objective isn’ t to eliminate every conceivable risk— which no building can do— but to create an environment that makes ordinary supervision easier, limits opportunities for harm, supports rapid response when something goes wrong and seconds count, and still feels unmistakably like a place where children and young people can learn and belong.
Pamela Perini, PSP, is a principal security consultant and owner of Pamela Perini Consulting, LLC and Perini Consultants.
|
|||
www. high-profile. com |