Managing school safety, especially when a school district doesn't have a safety officer and the responsibility for school safety falls on the administration, presents a box of puzzle pieces and how they fit together. It's like thinking about.
ZeroNow, a nonprofit organization whose members include both educators and private sector technology leaders, addressed this topic in a webinar this week, with a particular focus on risk assessment and technology.
What kind of technology should districts invest in? There's a lot of information out there, and not all of it is right for every district. So where do I start?
“Everyone starts by focusing on physical threats and vulnerabilities, but it goes far beyond that,” said former FBI agent Glenn Norling.
Many school districts are currently considering hiring a school security director.
“A lot of these guys are coming from outside of law enforcement, so we're kind of going back to the old way of doing field-wide assessments,” said Valdimir Talley, a safety and security administrator at the University of Illinois at Decatur. ” he said.
Kari Dacko, a school safety expert in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, said that whole-site assessments can be a difficult task for school administrators without experience in risk assessments.
“Me and another individual are responsible for the evaluation,” Dacko said. “When conducting these assessments, it can be quite a daunting task for school administrators, so as you walk around the building, you may see things for the first time from the building level. ”
Talley said he has been working in Decatur for about a year, so he still relies on outside sources to do his evaluations. His goal is to assess all the characteristics of the district to help create a safety template of “where we need to go.”
Ducko said it's important for administrators to keep in mind that schools have a variety of technologies. She said that after the evaluation, it is important to consider recommended technologies that can be successfully implemented in practice.
Many new technologies are powered by AI, but that doesn't mean they work well for everyone. Talley pointed out that even though AI is one of the key components of many technologies, such as cameras that monitor activity, federal laws and regulations prohibit it on campuses in his state.
Norling said assessments vary and it may be difficult to initially find all the resources and cover all identified gaps. He recommends starting with crime prevention through environmental design. This is a multidisciplinary approach to crime prevention. Conduct physical assessments both internally and externally. Review emergency plans and processes. Training with local institutions. And put it all together.
“How do we integrate security technology with our plans and processes and blend them together so there are no gaps?”
