Schools conducting a security assessment should consider the following checklist:
1. Conduct a hazard analysis. Identify the potential threats to the school environment.
2. Survey the entire complex for security and make recommendations with regard to the following:
· Geographic considerations - environment, fire and police services, boundaries.
· Exterior - fences, landscaping, lighting, parking, doors, windows, and other considerations.
· Interior - lighting, doors, receiving, storage, records, computer centers.
· Technological - alarms, locks, safes, emergency telephones, emergency lighting, sensors, and emergency power.
3. Plan your security system. Form a panel of school personnel at all levels - security officers, facilities personnel, financial and fiscal managers, maintenance and operations, school administrators, teachers. An outside expert could provide a fresh approach and unbiased advice.
4. Select electronic security hardware that can be economically upgraded as your school grows. Avoid hardware that can easily become outmoded.
5. Develop a restrictive, yet workable key control program and firmly adhere to it.
6. Consider security issues in the design of your school. Look for, and eliminate, building features that provide access to the roof or upper stories. These include half walls, fences attached to the building and fixtures or other construction elements that provide hand or foot holds.
7. Use fences and landscaping to define campus borders. Avoid landscaping that obscures observation from outside the campus. Maintain trees so they cannot be used to gain access to the roof or upper level rooms.
8. Place parking lots where they can be observed. Design them for safe flow, with one exit and entrance.
9. Remove exterior locks and handles on doors that are not required to be opened from the outside.
10. Listen for potential trouble in the restroom via an audio-sensing alarm. These "scream alarms" are activated only when a certain threshold of sound is reached.
11. Allow entry to the school through one main door only. Keep all others locked to outside entry. This allows visitor monitoring and enforcement of the visitor policy.
12. Include security issues in your public relations program to promote community awareness and participation.
13. As a part of security awareness, encourage parents to inform school officials of domestic changes to guard against parental abductions.
14. Develop communications protocols. During a crisis situation, communication is critical. Equip administrators with two-way radios.
15. Train faculty and staff on how to defuse potentially violent situations non-violently. If in-house expertise is not available, commercially available programs are an economical option.
16. Properly post campus entrances with the applicable sections of your visitor policy and no trespassing notices.
17. Walk, don't run, when responding to a fight. Walking allows you to visually analyze the situation, develop a response strategy, and to seek assistance along the way.
18. Establish a clear distinction between discipline issues and criminal infractions. Put in place and publicize policies and procedures to report all criminal behavior to law enforcement agencies.
19. Report to the board on a regular basis on school crime and safety-related issues. Keep the board informed and a partner in the security process.
20. Involve parents in school security programs. Adult visibility serves as a deterrent to crime and violence. Parent volunteers increase the reach of the security force and develop allies in the community.
Source: www.nais.org · Author: Robert Jonaitis, Great Lakes Educational Consultants, Inc. · Originally published by ISACS. Reprinted with permission. · Modified by NAIS, April 2002.
