Page 35 - School Planning & Management, April 2017

SAFETY & SECURITY { PREPARE AND BE AWARE }
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With the enormous attention we have placed on safe and secure campuses, is it still possible for a stranger to enter a school building and walk around freely without anyone noticing?
WHEN DEVELOPING security measures for school buildings, facility planners and adminis-
trators work hard to avoid visual references to correctional facilities. Any perception that they have gone too far with fencing, metal detectors or surveillance cameras typically generates an automatic response of, “we cannot operate our schools like
By Andrew LaRowe and Mike Raible
prisons!” The learning environment we create for teachers and children is simply not the same as the space necessary for locking up criminals. Still, if the com- parison sets an obvious boundary for the design and operation of school facilities, it does remind us that at least in prisons it is possible to have absolute control over indi- viduals entering or exiting the building.
Keeping our schools safe would be much simpler if we allowed only the children and the people who work there to have access to the campus and the buildings. This is not the case. During the course of any school day, a variety of people have legitimate reasons to come inside, and many are there to interact with students. Parents are deliv- ering forgotten items. Volunteers from the
APRIL 2017 / SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 35
PHOTOS COURTESY OF RAPTURE TECHNOLOGIES