With summer break halfway over, students across Florida will be getting ready to head back into the classroom in just a few short weeks. What should be an exciting time for students and parents has quickly become quite somber. Parents grapple with the decision of whether they should or shouldn’t send their children back into the physical classroom. Safety concerns among parents and the greater community have steadily grown in recent months, as this year alone, there have been twenty-seven school shootings across the United States. The communities impacted by these tragic events are left shattered as they attempt to pick up the pieces to regain some kind of normalcy.
Schools are faced with no easy task as they try to ensure the safety of students, teachers, and faculty. While no one blanket solution can quiet parents’ worries, there are better approaches schools can enact. Throughout this article, we will be establishing a few different methods schools could apply to make their campuses safer for everyone on site.
The first point we will be discussing is a secure campus. It’s essential to keep in mind here that there are a variety of ways depending on size and location, that factor into how you can keep your campus secure. These methods can be used in combination with other means to help keep students, teachers, and faculty safe.
Create a single point of contact
There should only be one entrance and exit for visitors on campus where they are adequately documented in terms of identity and reason for the visit. This point of contact can be established with parents through an email, phone call, or in a letter sent home with students to avoid potential confusion.
Keep doors locked
This should go without saying, but during school hours, doors should be locked from the outside to prevent anyone from entering the school unauthorized. These doorways should be monitored either through a security camera or motion sensor to alert staff in the event of suspicious activity. Moreover, larger schools may consider appointing a stationary guard to oversee entry points directly.
Accompany guests
Guests on campus should be accompanied by a staff member throughout the course of their visit. Not only is this a polite courtesy for those unfamiliar with the location, but it ensures that no other entry points are opened accidentally. This keeps visits on track without spending extra time trying to navigate an unfamiliar location by themselves.
Consider patrol guards
Patrol guards are ideal for larger schools where it may pose a challenge to effectively monitor a campus through security cameras. By having people on the ground, emergencies can be responded to in an effective manner. For instance, patrol guards could split into two teams. The first team heads in the direction of the emergency while the second team can stand by to evacuate students and staff if needed. Apex Security provides guards for many Central Florida schools and we are able to supply trained guards to serve this vital purpose.
Now that we have established a few different methods of keeping schools secure, we can discuss drills. Every room should have a clear plan of evacuation that everyone is familiar with so that in the event of an emergency, everyone can move quickly away from the threat. Teachers should take care to make this plan known to students at the beginning of the school year and provide a refresher later in the year as well. It is key that everyone is on the same page when it comes to how to react to an emergency.
While there are plenty of disagreements and opinions on how this can happen or why it happens, we are a united front in prioritizing the safety of students and staff. With a plan in place, students are able to focus on learning, and teachers can once again feel comfortable in the classroom.