The summer months represent a change of speed for K-12 school security professionals’ everyday operations. Although concerns about crimes such as vandalism and vagrancy may increase at this time, summer typically provides school officials with a chance to regroup.
This can include renewing training certifications, reviewing plans, attending security conferences and of course, taking some much-deserved vacation time.
Summer is also an important time to review your school’s access control system, particularly as it applies to staff and other school personnel who – because of retirement, termination, or long-term leave – should not have access to district properties.
Clay Crost, director – Education Market at Sonitrol Great Lakes, suggests that at a minimum, districts have firm employee exit procedures in place to discontinue campus access for departing staff, and to do so in a timely manner. An exit procedure includes surrendering keys, electronic keycards, and district ID documents on their last service day.
“Additionally,” Crost says, “Schools equipped with electronic access systems should ensure those systems can identify newly unauthorized personnel, and be able to disable those keycards, numerical entry codes, and passwords to avoid any form of compromise.”
As a further step towards enhancing security and access control, schools should be continually following personnel movements (hirings, transfers, terminations, retirements) and adjust those access controls throughout the year, Crost notes.
Sonitrol Great Lakes has been protecting schools throughout the region for more than 50 years. Learn more about how we serve the education market with the most comprehensive security systems in the industry.