Essay Sample on Schools' Safety: Securing Kids' Future from Intruders & Active Shooters

Introduction

Keeping the school environments safe from intruders or active shooters is an essential component that needs to be highlighted in the emergency plan of a school. Not only is children's safety necessary in our schools, but it is a high priority in society. As such, establishing environments where the children are always safe and can reach their highest level of potential is necessary and vital. However, most schools struggle with the way that they can keep their school safe, especially from active shooters. As such, a school must come up with a security assessment plan to see how they can mitigate the issues, especially in this era where mass shootings are rampant, especially in the school environments. This paper provides a brief security assessment report for a school, especially against the issue of active shooters.

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Why are schools vulnerable to active shooter attacks?

School environments are made of people from different walks of life. In some cases, different issues arise in school that might trigger various situational occurrences. Creating safe school environments requires that the school foster health community and student relationships inside and beyond. Several research studies suggest that school climates are some of the most significant predictors of violence. The atmosphere at the school is what encompasses structures, values, and relationships that all the students to learn in a nurturing, respectful, and safe environment (Klinger & Klinger, 2018). Investing in mental health services and increased social support can assist the student, especially those with social and emotional difficulties in getting the help they need. As a security manager, these are some of the mitigation factors that are put in place to ensure that security at school is upheld and reduce the active shooter incidences. First, we identify some of the security issues and concerns that might happen in the school environment. Different problems are related to the occurrences of active shooters in the school environment. While some of them are external, other internal problems can be addressed in the school setting.

Outsider Attacks

While the cases of lone terrorism are witnessed and are on the rise, schools are becoming some of the main targets. The schools are prone to these issues' due presence of a lot of people at the same time. The active shooters, as such, can come from outside and attack students based on different motives. This outsider attack issue is addressed through the implementation of centralized security and overall vigilance.

Internal Shooting

Sometimes, the perpetrators can be individuals within the school setting. There can be many reasons for this, including mental issues and criminal influence. The security assessment discusses the subject through various mitigation factors. The internal shootings are the most common, especially in the United States, where people can easily access guns.

Observable Loopholes

There are school systems that might be vulnerable due to their poor implementation of security. They are, thus, easy targets for any active shooters who are on the verge of killings. Studies reveal that most of the shooting incidences have happened in schools where there were obvious security problems such as lack of proper surveillance and easy access from the outside.

Security Crisis Plan Development

The schools must come up quality security crisis plan through careful planning. It should meet the needs of the school without having to strain on the budget. Since every school is unique and has different challenges such as construction design, location, age, size, and other factors, there need to be plans that will ensure that all the elements on security are upheld. The critical areas of the assessment pinpoint some of the vulnerabilities and will also identify the strengths and weaknesses of any security issue (Houben, 2005). This plan is wholly designed to try to anticipate the emergencies that might occur and reduce the incidences of mass shootings. The result of the assessment will be the first phase in developing a strategic plan, course of action, and the budget for securing the school environment. Most instances of active shooting are often preventable, especially when plans to curb them are addressed beforehand.

Training of Staff and Teachers

The teachers also need to stay vigilant while continuing with their fundamental role of educating the students. They can help in identifying the students who seem troubled so they can receive professional psychological intervention or counseling. The staff and teachers alike should seriously take any student threat or tip of violence and check into each claim (O'Toole, 2014). The step will also keep the community and parents informed of what is going on. The training needs to incorporate safety drills, the staff, teachers, and even the students. The safety drills need to be announced as it forewarns the community while reducing the active shooter likelihood of happening.

Leveraging Multiple Layers of Technology

Dependable school protection comes from imposing various security layers since no one method can guarantee ultimate protection from the active shooters. Frequently testing the different fire and communication systems is imperative. That is, gun detection systems, fire alarms, duress buttons, radios, phones, PA systems, and other devices. The metal detectors help in the identification of knives, spot guns, and other weapons when entering the school. The video surveillance cameras add another security layer hence providing the security officers and school administrators with more viable ideas on what happens around and in the school after, during, and before a crisis. Law enforcement personal will also be on alert if the videos are transmitted to their networks (Ortmeier & Johnson, 2009). The responding officers would even be viewing from their vehicles. Protecting the whole school fraternity is a huge undertaking that needs the establishment of priorities and laying out plans that should work.

Controlled Security Guard Booth and Access Points (unauthorized visitors)

The school needs to have additional measures to ensure that all facets of security are incorporated. During the school hours, the doors at school are kept locked while any visitor needs to undergo a security check, signing in, and have to be given badges to allow entrance. Having a central control system ensures the prevention of unauthorized visitors and limited access from outsiders who might instigate gun incidences. The controlled systems are credited to have helped a lot of schools. Other factors that can lead to being better security approaches in schools against active shooters include lockdown drills application, increased awareness and communication, increased security and police presence, and putting up visible cameras.

Addressing Security Concerns and Policy Implications

These security concerns mentioned are above are addressed through the application of various control methods. School-based threat assessments have been known to help the scenarios and troubled students. From research on the students and outsiders that commit such atrocities, show that there is a similar character trend among most of them. Often, they are to benefit from the situation or are due to mental issues.

A security assessment is well-suited for mass shootings prevention. Also, it has other potential benefits other than the prevention of violence. It includes the reduction of transfer, expulsion, and suspension cases. Some of the mental cases are preventable through counseling of the potential victims and sometimes putting them away from the school environment (Timm, 2015). The threat assessment represents a vital policy shift from the use of zero tolerance in the school environments. Zero tolerance aims to deter violence by imposing harsh consequences for violation of rules in the circumstances where misbehavior occurs. It also entails the intention of the students. Such instances include where a student, intentionally or accidentally, brings a gun to school where they can receive automatic school suspension or expulsion. The application of a threat assessment approach takes into consideration the student's intention and the seriousness of the situation in the calibrated plan.

The threat also entails a mindset shift from violence prediction. It is a move to a broader violence prevention approach by taking actions and identifying protective and risk factors to reduce the risk through troubled persons' assistance. It is grounded on the goal of reducing the risk by identification of the conflict or problem that is underlying the threatening behavior of students while helping to resolve it. School mass shootings are horrific events that need to be prevented through the adoption of security measures and costly policies through massive investment on the same.

References

Houben, M. (2005). International Crisis Management. Routledge.

Klinger, A., & Klinger, A. (2018). Keeping Students Safe Every Day. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Ortmeier, P., & Johnson, B. (2009). Introduction to Security: Operations and Management. Pearson/Prentice Hall.

O'Toole, M. (2014). The school shooter a threat assessment perspective. Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), FBI Academy.

Timm, P. (2015). School security. Butterworth-Heinemann.