School Security: One Size Does Not Fit All

During ISC West in Las Vegas, the Security Industry Association and others involved in the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) coalition outlined goals, guidelines and more.

Mickey McCarter

Principals and school administrators today incur a daunting array of responsibilities, including the implementation of school security measures in their facilities. But unlike with, say, fire protection, school officials have no guidance to rely upon when assessing school security requirements.

A coalition known as the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS), consisting of the security industry, school officials, law enforcement and others, would change that.

It’s a worthy goal, said Michele Gay, founder of Safe and Sound Schools and PASS member during a press conference at the ISC West security expo in Las Vegas recently.

“No one has died in a fire in a school in over 56 years,” said Gay, who lost a daughter in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012. “We are very proud to join forces with PASS to develop and promote nationwide standards for school security and to provide unbiased education for schools across the nation.”

PASS experts, which include about 25 core members, have experience in implementing such standards.

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Chuck Wilson, executive director of the National Systems Contractors Association (NSCA), and Scott Lord, director of innovation at All Systems, were among those who undertook an effort in 1996 to establish a specification for mass notification and emergency communications (MNEC) with the goal that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) would incorporate it into its building fire codes.

It took them until about 2002 to convince fire code officials to adopt the MNEC spec into the NFPA code. And in 2007, the first version of that code was published.

“From 2007 to now, 52 percent of the state buildings being built are being done so with the building code that mandates emergency communications systems according to our guidelines — and education is right at the top of the list,” Wilson said at ISC West.

“We’re hoping these school safety standards can be fast-tracked shorter than that,” he added. “Our dream is that we take these practices and one day turn it into an actual code so that a school wouldn’t be built without some technology that goes in there.”

The Security Industry Association (SIA) has mounted a campaign to attract more federal and state funding for implementing such security members, in part through an initiative under its Security Advocates web tool at http://www.securityadvocates.org.

At ISC West, Ron Hawkins, SIA manager of special projects and partnerships, gave insights into the PASS guidelines, which received input from manufacturers, law enforcement, school officials and other stakeholders.

“If a school administrator were responsible for protecting a school from fire, but had no codes to rely upon, how would they know where to put sprinklers? How would they know where to put alarms? How would they know what processes to use?” Hawkins said. “And they are responsible for implementing school security but they do lack that official guidance. So we are trying to move into that direction and to give them a toolkit they could use.”

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To be most effective, the guidelines, which provide four tiers of recommendations, are vendor-agnostic in that they do not discuss specific companies or products. School facilities can turn to the guidelines (available here) to tailor solutions to their environments.

“It would be foolish to try to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution. There are thousands of schools in the United States. They vary widely by location, size and resources,” Hawkins said. “That’s what led to the tiered approach. The idea is a school, based on its risk assessment and based on the level of resources that they have available, can select a tier within each layer and can come up with a unique customized solution for their school.”

Wilson, who generally was most familiar with schools in Iowa, saw firsthand the importance of customizing solutions after touring an inner-city Chicago school with the director of safety and security for Chicago Public Schools several years ago.

“She shared some video surveillance footage from some of the inner-city schools there. I was shocked,” Wilson said. He toured the school in question with the security director, and said he saw conditions caused by gang and drug activity that chilled him to the core.

“I called everybody I knew and said, ‘Guys, we have to do more to help develop standards for schools for safety and security,'” Wilson recalled. “Our children have no chance of being well-educated in that type of environment.”

PASS hopes to deal with the root of those security challenges, Wilson said, and thus make K-12 safer for all students and staff.

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