Back to School Planning is a Year-Round Commitment

• By Jeremy Saline
• July 15, 2024

With summer underway, K-12 and college students, faculty, and staff are taking a well-earned break to recharge and gear up for the fall. It’s also the season when security professionals can get in and get busy installing upgrades and retrofits before the new school year starts. It’s a brief window, but, thanks to diligent planning throughout the year, the pros are always ready to hit the ground running at the last bell of spring term to make the most out of the limited time available.

A lot goes into studying what to do and where to allocate budgets for improving security at today’s schools. Naturally, no one size fits all. For this article, though, we’ll highlight some things K-12 districts, higher ed institutions, professional organizations, and the security industry are focusing on to improve the safety of campuses and the well-being of those attending, teaching, and supporting them.

PASS K-12 Guideline Updates
For those involved with K-12, expect revisions soon to the current Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) Guidelines. If you’re not familiar with this important organization and their free publications, visit passk12.org to learn more about them.

The guidelines are structured to cover five physical layers of school facility security, from the district-wide level all the way to the classroom/interior perimeter. Each layer outlines basic protective components of security, including procedures, access control, and much more.

Generally, each best practice recommendation corresponds to one of these components. Recommendations are further divided into Tiers progressing from Tier 1, which provides a good baseline level of security, to Tier 4 with the most comprehensive approaches to safeguarding a facility.

Below are the major updates that my esteemed colleagues Guy Grace and Michael Garcia shared with us. Both have extensive backgrounds in K-12 security and have been actively involved with PASS from the beginning. While Guy and Michael work for our company, PASS Guidelines are product and brand agnostic.

For the Building Perimeter Layer Access Control Component, PASS is proposing a new Tier 1 requirement that says “all visitor entry doors—exterior, interior, and office—need to be secured with a remote release and audio/visual system.”

Fortunately, new, customizable IP video/audio intercom solutions are a practical choice. They give personnel a clear view of who is requesting access, two-way audio, and a more secure way to remotely identify visitors and grant entry.

Another change to the Building Perimeter layer is that along with the Tier 1 primary entrance, electronic access control (EAC) for secondary entrances has been added as a Tier 2-3-4 requirement.

A new Tier 3-4 component for Building Perimeter EAC calls for issuing “mobile credentials to emergency responders” to save critical minutes by reducing their reliance on locating lock boxes to retrieve entry keys. New York City, for example, has already provided its 60,000+ police officers with mobile credentials to access any one of the city’s 1300 schools.

The Classroom/Interior Perimeter Layer of the PASS Guidelines is also being updated to more clearly state that “classroom and shelter-in-place doors must have the ability to be locked from inside” (Tier 1). Adding lock status indicators is also recommended (Tier 2) so teachers and students can readily confirm a door is secured. Surprisingly, there are still quite a few schools catching up on these vital upgrades.

While a new Tier 1 requirement states that “classroom doors should be closed and locked when occupied”, this isn’t always easy to stay on top of manually due to students coming and going and other distractions during the day. Subsequently, more K-12 districts are deploying EAC at the classroom opening, which automatically locks the door upon closing while still allowing free egress. Cost-effective Wi-Fi and wireless EAC solutions are making the adoption more feasible.

Some schools are even programming an available button on the classroom side of EAC locks that can be pressed to signal a duress or lockdown situation. This capability, along with panic buttons worn by faculty and staff, helps ensure there are multiple ways to send alerts if danger arises. Video cameras within the building, including those used in classrooms for eLearning (where allowed), can then be switched on from command centers if necessary to confirm whether there’s an emergency in progress.

Mobile Credentials, Biometrics, and More Access Control Potential
Colleges and universities have had badge, card, and keypad electronic access control readers in place for many years. Now, it’s all about mobile credentials. Many higher education institutions nationwide are either fully in the midst of making the shift or have committed to doing so. Students expect that experience to match the level of convenience and security their phones provide for practically every transaction now.

As mentioned earlier, the migration to mobile has been growing in importance in K-12, too, for the efficiency and safety it provides faculty, staff, and first responders.

An exciting new digital access solution is facial identification, where the credential is simply the human. Different than facial recognition, which has been used for surveillance and picking a person of interest out of a crowd, facial identification is an intentional application where a person chooses to allow the technology to use their face as a credential. In higher education, it’s particularly advantageous for athletic programs where carrying a phone or card is impractical and risks the potential for loss or theft.

With its very attractive price point, some universities might even consider facial identification as an alternative if they haven’t yet moved to mobile credentials. But it’s more likely that mobile is here to stay for the long haul with facial identification serving as an additional credential for special applications or circumstances.

Facial identification is also gaining traction for visitor management screening in K-12 and healthcare environments in particular. Parents, contractors, and others can “register” their faces in the system and then use the technology to be cleared to enter controlled spaces and authorized destinations.

Another level of access control that’s become increasingly integral, especially on college campuses, pertains to package delivery. Hundreds of thousands of packages flow into universities every year, and students want easy ways to pick them up. That’s why smart delivery lockers are now being incorporated into residence halls, libraries, and student stores. IT departments use them to issue loaner laptops, and athletic departments are considering how they can help enforce bag policies.

The student experience is seamless. When a package is in the locker, ready for pickup, a notification goes out via email, text, or a smart locker app. The recipient approaches the locker with their phone, scans a QR code, and the locker door pops open to let them grab the package. Some campuses are even incorporating locker services into their mobile or school card credentials.

Additional innovative solutions are also being assessed right now for education environments, such as advanced AI for video surveillance that can help detect weapons, people in distress, vaping, and other disconcerting behavior within school buildings or on school property. Some are better suited for preventing or de-escalating threats at the parking lot and building perimeters, while others need further testing and pilot programs to confirm their efficacy.

Tightening access control, preempting danger, and making academic life safer, more enjoyable, and highly productive is an ongoing endeavor. Like learning itself, determining the right fit of solutions for school security is a journey, not a destination.

This article originally appeared in the July / August 2024 issue of Campus Security Today.