school security

Just a few weeks ago I wrote this story, about lawmakers in Texas considering a bill that would allow students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on university and college campuses. I wrote that Texas would be only the second state to adopt such legislation, behind Utah. Well, it looks like Oklahoma is giving Texas a run for the number two spot.

According to this article, the Oklahoma measure was narrowly approved by a state House committee yesterday (9-8) and is on its way to the House floor. But, similar to the legislation in Texas, many educational advocates and university administrators oppose the legislation:

"This is not a good idea," said Roger Webb, president of the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond and the state's former commissioner of public safety. Webb said the presence of guns on college campuses will create unsafe conditions for students and faculty and that campus security should be the responsibility of trained law enforcement officers.

But the bill's author, Rep. Randy Terrill, said the measure would provide a way for college professors and administrators to protect themselves and others during campus violence like the mass shootings in 2007 at Virginia Tech and 2008 at Northern Illinois, according to the article.

Even if this bill passes, university and colleges will still be able to ban handguns on campus.

Do you think allowing faculty to carry concealed weapons will help keep students safe or does such a law increase the chance of more gun-related incidents happening on campus?

By Jeff Floreno, Wren

School administrators generally approach security from a perspective of managing issues that present themselves during routine school activities. This approach seems to make sense, as it captures most of the issues at hand. However, a security professional would say that this approach captures only the low hanging fruit, while missing safety and security risks that may arise during special events.

In corporate America, businesses are typically prepared and have plans in place to deal with special events such as retails’ Black Friday, or a highly publicized new product release, or even a large shareholders’ meeting. Conversely, the same level of planning for special events in schools is not apparent. Part of the problem may be that if a school has a security plan, it probably only addresses daily activities and loses sight of special events.

Identifying a “Special Event”
The first step is identifying what might be considered a special event. Some triggers to get us thinking in the right direction would include the following;

Is space being used differently than it is typically used?
Is there an increase in population on campus?
Are there student activities off campus?
Off campus activities occurring in close proximity to the school?

This is not a complete list, but it provides a format for collecting information about special events. It is important to remember that special events bring larger than normal crowds, they are sometimes emotionally-charged, and don’t always involve just students and their parents. In all of these cases, providing adequate emergency response while protecting people, property and information requires additional planning and resources.

Planning for an Event
The first order of business is to review your emergency plans and ensure that they apply to the event at hand. If so, security personnel or administrators should notify the appropriate emergency responders of the scheduled event. This will enable them to provide routine assistance or respond more quickly to an emergency if the need arises. The trick in planning for special events is anticipating how people, property and information may be subject to greater-than-normal risk and what resources will be required to protect them.

For example, as attendance at sporting events increases, is there a greater risk of unwanted activities taking place in and around the school? Are security resources deployed to mitigate that risk? If an election is taking place in the community, and the elementary school cafeteria is a polling place, is there a plan to deal with traffic flow and crowd management inside the school? Consider utilizing resources such as off-duty law enforcement, security guards, volunteers, and video and access control as a means to manage the influx of people. Most importantly, develop a plan for your special event.

Examine the history of your special events and look for learning opportunities, benchmark with other schools in the area, and reach out to law enforcement or security professionals for assistance as needed. Doing your homework is the key to successful planning.

Communication
Advance communication with all stakeholders is crucial. Review roles and responsibilities, and set up a “dry run” to give everyone involved an opportunity to practice and ask questions. Also, the dry run should be used to test the functionality of communications gear and the accuracy of an emergency resource call list. Ensure there is an appropriate means to communicate with the crowd. For most schools, this is a PA system, loudspeaker, or bullhorn. Prepare messages in advance to communicate crisp and concise information. This practice will keep the speaker on message, communicating the correct instructions and reducing the need to adlib. Signage communicates important information such as the location of exits, first aid stations, fire extinguishers, rest rooms, etc. Remember, there will be many people at special events who are not familiar with the school’s lay out.

Managing Crowds and Traffic
Start the event off on the right foot by deploying a good traffic management plan. When large crowds are expected, reach out to law enforcement for assistance in directing traffic. Assess the parking situation and, when necessary, collaborate with neighboring businesses or residents to authorize overflow parking thus accommodating everyone. During nighttime events, adequate lighting is a must when it comes to reducing safety and security incidents.

Managing the crowd helps ensure safety and minimizes conflict. A best practice for crowd control at a sporting event is to provide separate entrances and designated seating areas for the home and visiting teams and their fans. This will help avoid conflict, fights, and other undesirable interactions. Managing queues may be necessary for some events. Lines should be controlled using crowd control barriers that are set up in the most direct route possible.
Crowd control on campus may also mean blocking access to certain parts of the school, ensuring classrooms and entrances are locked and monitored to avoid unwanted activities that could result in theft, vandalism, accidents, or other legal liabilities.

Make your special event “special” by taking the time to review and update plans, make sure the traffic plan minimizes frustrations, validate that the right resources are in place, and communicate roles and responsibilities to all the stakeholders. Remember, the key to providing security for a special event is planning.

Jeff Floreno serves as director of security operations and strategy for Wren, providers of physical security solutions that create safe learning environments. Floreno directs new product development efforts and provides security expertise to Wren’s education customers. Floreno can be reached at jeff.floreno@wrensolutions.com. To learn more about Wren’s solutions, visit www.wrensolutions.com.  

There's probably no sector of the population who embraces social networking more than college students. After all, mega-sites like Facebook were originally created as a network site for Harvard students and then expanded to other colleges. Plus, having the ability to Tweet out your every thought and observation to a drove of "followers" is right in line with the self-indulgent, the-world-revolves-around-me attitude of many college-age folks - followed closely only by high school students, I'd say.

But some school security folks have found that this surge in social networking has some serious security implications. This article found that social networks often provide too much information about a student's whereabouts and personal life.

"It used to be walking down a darkened street at night and being aware of your surroundings," said security expert Norman Bates. "Now that darkened street is in the computer. You might not be aware of who is listening figuratively or literally and gathering your information, stalking you."

(First of all, this guy is simply referred to as a generic security expert? Hmmm, questionable source at best.)

Anyway, the article points out that students often post about events or parties they plan to attend, making it easier for others to track them down.

But it's not just about students telling too many people where they are or where they're going to be, but social networking sites also makes it hard for campus security officials to know who belongs on campus and who doesn't.

"It presents more of a challenge for campus security or police officers to challenge someone who may be on the property who doesn't belong there, who may have ill designs," said Bates.

Do you think social networking poses security threats? Take our poll here to weigh in.

When I posted our top story yesterday on the 50 most dangerous schools in the country, I expected it would garner a lot of reads, but I didn't expect it would be off the charts. The Daily Beast, an online magazine, published its second-annual ranking of the most dangerous colleges and universities in the country (it also lists the 50 safest, but, nobody's freaking out about being included on that list. That's marketing gold, baby, put it in the brochure).

Here are the top five most dangerous schools:
1. Tufts University in Medford, Mass.
2. University of Maryland-Baltimore
3. Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
4. Rutgers University-Newark in Newark, N.J.
5. University of Hartford in West Hartford, Conn.

(Unfortunately the list of the top 50 doesn't appear to actually be a list. To access all 50, click on the image in the middle of the story and then scroll through, one-by-one, to see all 50 schools. Clumsy, I know. Let me know if you find a better way).

Anyway, the publication used crime data from 2006-2008 from the U.S. Department of Education, the FBI and the Secret Service, in conjunction with the Clery Act. They also weighted crimes by severity: Burglary carried the lowest value, with car theft weighed twice as much, assault or robbery six times, arson 10 times, negligent manslaughter 20 times and murder 40 times. All totals were then divided by the number of enrolled students, so that midsize and large campuses could be accurately compared.

Since the publication of this list, there has been a huge debate about the legitimacy of these findings. First of all, the premise that Tufts University is the most dangerous school in the country is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Tufts obviously disagrees with the findings, too.

Washington University in St. Louis, which holds the 13th spot, isn't happy either:

We believe the analysis and methodology used by the site are flawed and are not a credible analysis of crime patterns around our campuses.

They pointed to a blurb from The Daily Beast about the methodology used:

"To be fair, even the numbers reported to the Department of Education are frequently criticized as imperfect and, indeed, schools are regularly fined for non-compliance. Surely, some schools gaming the system escaped deserved inclusion on this list, replaced by others that were steadfastly honest. Congress this fall is expected to strengthen Clery's safety regulations. And colleges themselves also note that inclusion on our list often reflects more their location than their safety precautions."

Obviously, schools aren't happy with the apparent flaws in crime reporting. There were some recent changes to the Clery Act, which came into effect on July 1, 2010 that were spurred by the shootings at Virginia Tech, but these changes didn't really impact reporting validity. Instead, these changes required official emergency plans be written; schools to conduct at yearly drill based on their emergency plans; changes to policies regarding missing students; and the way schools report hate crimes.

But, based on the outcry from some of these schools, there needs to be more consistency and fairness in the reporting structure (or perhaps greater consequences for cheating). I have calls out to folks at Security on Campus, which is more or less in charge of Clery Act stuff, for some comments about these issues. Stayed tuned.