Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Alarming Ideas

  • By Michael Fickes
  • 06/01/12
Many pre-K-12 principals have a story about an estranged spouse who came to school to take his or her child home, despite a court order prohibiting it.

In today’s raw, aggressive world, it seems important to bar a parent with that idea from entering. That’s just one of many reasons that schools, today, typically lock all exterior doors and have a hall monitor to greet and question anyone trying to enter once school has begun.

Of course, refusing entry to a parent could set off a violent confrontation. Security experts recommend equipping a reception area such as the principal’s office with a panic button. “It should connect to a central station so that it sends an alarm to the police,” says Sean Ahrens, practice leader manager with Chicago-based Aon Risk Solutions Security Consulting Practice.

While the police will respond to a call from a school immediately, the panic alarm should also summon more immediate help from the school staff, perhaps by way of an automated message.

There are different ways to think about alarms in this situation, Ahrens continues. The panic alarm means “come here and help me now.” But suppose the individual does have a weapon and pushes past the monitor and starts down the hallway.

“Then, you need a method to communicate with staff and faculty — and you can’t use a straightforward announcement that a person with a gun is in the school,” Ahrens says. “Use a code that you have established. For instance, an announcement such as ‘Principal Black, please come to the office.’ If you’ve set it up, teachers will know to lock the door, get the students down low and to keep everyone away from the windows.”

Another code that might speed help could be the lights. “In some instances, an alarm can be as simple as lights turned on in a facility after hours,” Ahrens says. “Lighting systems tied to building management systems through occupancy sensors can alert an astute patrolling police officer to an intrusion.”

Alarming Equipment
Equipment theft is another school security problem today. For example, Ahrens points to classroom projectors mounted on ceilings or walls. “You can protect expensive equipment by connecting it to a hard-wired alarm circuit,” he says. “If the equipment is removed while the alarm is activated, the broken connection will set off the alarm.”

Ahrens goes on to say that rooms housing expensive equipment might also use motion detection sensors set to alarm when something in the room moves after hours — when no one is supposed to be in the room.

“Along the same lines, you should think about connecting sensors to the copper condensing coils in air conditioning units installed on the roof,” Ahrens adds. “Today, thieves are targeting copper coils, which can be sold. Tearing the coils out can destroy the unit.”

Alarming Eyes
In today’s high-tech world, surveillance cameras no longer tie into independently cabled systems. Instead, they connect to the school’s network, which also carries video to and from television monitors in the media center and the classrooms.

A video management system enables a principal or security officer to call up cameras on a computer or to send video from cameras to other devices connected to the network — like classroom television monitors. “We’ve used this idea to enable custodians working after hours to turn on classroom monitors and keep an eye out for trouble as the monitor cycles through the cameras.”

School security is offering more alarming protection all the time. 

Featured

  • Designing for Every Mind

    Learning environments have the power to shape not just what students know, but who they become. When a school is designed with genuine empathy—for the full range of ways students think, sense, and engage with the world—it becomes more than a building. It becomes a catalyst for growth, confidence, and belonging. That is the animating idea behind neurodiverse design, and it is one that is transforming how more architects and designers are thinking about school design.

  • Virginia Tech Tops Out New College of Engineering Building

    Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., recently celebrated the topping out of Mitchell Hall, which will soon stand as the largest College of Engineering building on campus, according to a news release. The university partnered with Skanska on the 285,500-square-foot facility, which has an expected completion date of winter 2028.

  • Q&A: How to Prevent Kitchen Grease Fires in Commercial Kitchens

    School cafeterias and university dining halls serve thousands of meals daily, relying on high-heat equipment like fryers, grills, and ovens. While these operations keep students fed, they also generate significant grease-laden vapors. Without proper controls, this grease becomes a silent fire threat. As a certified exhaust cleaning specialist and business coach who has helped hundreds of institutional facilities achieve NFPA 96 compliance, I emphasize that proactive grease management isn’t optional; it’s a core fire/life safety practice.

  • Tomball ISD Opens New Tomball West High School

    Tomball Independent School District in Tomball, Texas, recently celebrated the official opening of Tomball West High School, the district's third comprehensive high school, with a community ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to a district news release.