School emergency planning is an opportunity for security service providers to shine

As schools revise their emergency plans, Covid-19 is creating opportunities for the security industry.

Factoring Covid-19 into school emergency plans, which should ideally be reassessed and updated annually, presents South Africa’s security service providers with an unusual opportunity to garner market share.

According to an article by ScholarChip, a USA-based company that specialises in school security1, the landscape of school safety planning has changed significantly thanks to the pandemic. The result, it asserts, is growing demand for access control systems and touchless technology.

ScholarChip makes the point that schools need to plan for second (and possibly more) waves of the pandemic as has happened throughout the world. This suggests that security product manufacturers and service providers have an important role to play when it comes to providing relevant advice and products.

“Even if a second wave is less severe than the first, schools must understand that planning for a pandemic requires new thinking,” says ScholarChip. “Administrators need to start with an after-action review of what did and didn’t work in the final months of the 20192020 school year. This will help identify gaps and areas for improvement. Start by asking questions about the strategies used. Did your distance-learning technologies work well? What problems occurred? How were they addressed, and how long did it take to do so?”

Security hardening

In order to limit the scope for infection, ScholarChip strongly advocates that schools install hard security products such as access control systems. “Monitored access and locked exterior doors force visitors to enter the building at specific points, where staff can complete and enforce safety and wellness procedures,” it says. “Limiting visitor access to the building by restricting them to the office or escorting them only to specific destinations further reduces risk. Regardless of the strategies used to limit outside exposure, tracking visitors and contact information is crucial. A visitor management solution will allow the school to maintain contact with outsiders. This will simplify communication in the event of an outbreak.”

What can schools be doing better?

In his article “What can schools be doing better?”2 on the Accredited Schools Online website, school safety expert Jason Russell says the biggest hurdle in school emergency preparedness is understanding the importance and need for training. Russell, who is the president and CEO of Secure Education Consultants (SEC), served with the United States Secret Service as a Special Agent and has taught criminal investigation and security courses as an adjunct professor. “In emergencies people don’t rise to the occasion, they sink to the level of their training. Training is the most important piece of the emergency preparedness puzzle, so schools should focus more of their safety budgets on training staff,” he says. Included in his suggestions for safer educational facilities is that administrators “seek expertise in the design phase” of physical security systems. “Often the architects designing schools have little to no experience with security. When the process is done the schools are left with security features they have not been properly trained to use.”

When it comes to assessing school risk, Russell maintains that the first step is to assess natural disaster risks in their areas. These include fires, storms, landslides and extreme temperatures. On the subject of fire, he says: “Between 2007 and 2011, fire departments in the U.S. responded to about 5,700 structure fires in educational facilities. Seventy-one percent of those fires were in K-12 schools, and about half of them were intentionally set. The remaining half of fires in schools occur unintentionally from things like malfunctioning heating units or chemicals interacting in a chemistry lab. Emergency preparation should not be limited to indoor fires. Wildfires can pose real threats to schools, especially those along the West and in rural areas, where dry climates and wind cause fires to move and grow rapidly.”

Most South African schools are not prepared for emergencies

Most South African schools are relatively ill-prepared to deal with emergency situations, says local website Safer Schools3 .

“More so now than ever before, schools are faced with the challenge of being prepared to deal with a plethora of crises, from medical emergencies to threats of violence, from severe weather to service delivery strikes, and from sexual abuse to kidnapping. It is therefore important for schools not to work in isolation, but to establish relationships with law enforcement and fire department officials, medical practitioners and local municipalities, and to coordinate plans with these potential partners before a crisis occurs.” The ideal school emergency plan Agile Security USA has a succinct and relevant school security plan for schools that highlights the opportunities for security service providers:4

Its suggestions include:

1. Limiting access to schools by providing a single entrance for students, staff and visitors. Other access doors must be locked and checked periodically to make certain that they haven’t been tampered with, it says, and checking needs to extend to windows, too.

2. Monitoring parking areas. This needs to be done 24/7 by an armed security guard and with the focus on people leaving and entering.

3. Monitoring common areas. Cafeterias, hallways and playgrounds need to be monitored constantly, ideally with video surveillance equipment.

4. Hiring professional security officials.

5. Keeping a visitor’s log. It should be mandatory for all visitors to check in at the main reception or security desk and be assigned visitors’ badges.

Staff need to be trained to look out for strangers roaming around the premises without badges and to report suspicious activity to security immediately.

6. Conducting threat and risk assessments. Proper procedures need to be defined and assessed by specialists.

7. Reviewing emergency plans and protocols. Key areas include lockdown, evacuation and communication procedures. Schools must share them with the staff, students, and parents and provide training to all regarding how to respond in such emergency situations. Again, this is the job for experts.

8. Conducting seminars and lectures on violence prevention.

9. Making students part of the security system.

10. Implementing an anonymous reporting system.

11. Creating a core security team. Their responsibilities will include locking and unlocking school buildings and key control.

12. Keeping rooms locked when not in use.

13. Implementing a two-way communication in classrooms. All classrooms should be able to communicate directly with the security or administration offices via microphone and speaker.

In a world where violence, bullying, gangs, drugs, sexual predation, theft, murder, rape and cybercrime along with Covid-19 are rampant in learning facilities, security experts have an opportunity to make a meaningful difference – and a living.

1. https://www.scholarchip.com/schoolsafety-planning/

2. https://www.accreditedschoolsonline. org/resources/emergency-preparednessin-school/

3. https://www.saferschools.co. za/#:~:text=Safer%20Schools%20 started%20as%20a,Primary%2C%20 Primary%20and%20Secondary%20 schools

4. https://agilesecurityusa.com/14-ideasto-improve-school-security/)