Five ways to keep schools safer with innovative visitor management

Key points:

A crucial aspect of school security is controlling who enters and leaves campus, including visitors. Visitor management can be complicated because school campuses tend to have multiple access points. In recent years, schools have made efforts to advance all safety measures within schools, including visitor management. In fact, recent research by the Pew Research Center found that 98 percent of schools require visitors to sign in and carry identification..

Schools can emphasize the protection of students and staff by requiring visitors to wear a specific visitor security card that can monitor their location while on campus. Unlike staff security cards, which only provide location information once an alert is initiated to maintain staff privacy, the visitor card will monitor the visitor's location in real time while on school grounds.

Visitor management solutions can monitor all visitors, including but not limited to parents, volunteers, contractors and vendors, and can indicate if any visitors are not allowed on school grounds. Through my experience as a former educator and superintendent, I have identified the following five ways to keep K-12 schools safer with better visitor management strategies:

Carry out visitor control

School visits occur daily; therefore, they must be simplified and made safer for students and staff through protocols and procedures. In previous years, schools may have had little or no program in place when it came to registering visitors to the schools. In today's more modern and technologically advanced times, there are more measures that can be taken to ensure a safer school environment. One of these important steps is to conduct background checks on visitors before allowing them to enter campus. By screening visitors, schools can confirm the reasoning and relationships behind the visitor's attendance at school. Additionally, this assessment can also allow for a custom banned list. This is to protect students and staff from people who put them at risk.

Have technology for instant alerts about visitors

There are many levels of sophistication when it comes to visitor management systems. Instant alerts can provide information to campus staff about the status of visitors within the school. Through discreet notifications, administrators can know who is trying to visit the school. For example, if someone on the custom banned list is trying to enter the school, a school resource officer can be informed via a discreet notification without the visitor knowing that others are being alerted. These awareness notifications can also be made through emails and SMS text messages.

Provide secure student releases

When students are picked up early from school, there is an early dismissal, or any situation that may disrupt a student's typical routine at school, safety measures must be in place to ensure that they are released in a manner approved by their parents. or tutor. These extraordinary releases should also be a time to conduct background checks on adults who pick up students to confirm that these individuals are able to do so and that the child will be safe.

Use detailed reports for all visitor activities.

All data related to the visitor management system must be recorded and accessible to all staff through any internet-connected device to minimize errors that could impact a student's safety. When there are many moving parts in a school system, it is crucial to have a reference point when referring to a child's placement for their safety. Your school security system should have a location where this information resides. Within your recorded data, all visitor and staff hours within the building must be recorded to the minute; this includes teachers, substitutes, other staff members and volunteers. In the event of an emergency, you want to make sure everyone inside the building is accounted for.

All available data must be taken into account when a visitor registers. It is important that mandatory photo checks and background checks be performed on every visitor check-in, regardless of whether front-of-house staff members recognize or know the visitors. The prohibited list is likely to change, so procedures must be followed during each individual check-in.

If a staff member is ever unsure about a visitor-related situation, they should be able to immediately access visitor reports. The main purpose of this is not only for convenience but also to save time in a situation that could possibly be a security emergency.

Integrate visitor location systems with other campus systems

Whether you're looking to add visitor management to your current system or are looking for an entirely new product, it's crucial that your selection matches any other student information system you've implemented at your school. Synchronization will ensure greater adoption by staff, convenience for all parties involved, and greater cross-referencing between student information. Syncing student meetings, daily attendance, and time codes directly to your SIS is crucial to a successful visitor engagement element within your plan.

School safety plans are developed through careful planning and evaluation of the needs and challenges of individual schools. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to handling visitor management, so a comprehensive security plan should consist of data-driven and human controls. Once a security plan is developed and approved, it is critical to ensure the buy-in and understanding of those who will enforce the plan. A solid strategy for handling visitor management will help avoid unnecessary oversights and ensure student safety.