Need for Access Control in Schools Heightens

The topic of school safety is one that brings the security industry together, unifying professionals from all areas toward one goal – to better secure our K-12 schools. One organization, the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS), recently released the seventh edition of its Safety and Security Guidelines for K-12 Schools, offering nationwide best practices for securing school facilities, based on input from subject matter experts across education, public safety, security and other industry sectors.

The PASS Security and Safety Guidelines provide school administrators, school boards, and public safety and security professionals with a road map for implementing a layered and tiered approach to enhancing the safety of school environments, along with a tool to prioritize needs. Thousands of stakeholders have downloaded the guidelines free of charge, and many districts have utilized them to evaluate and enhance their security infrastructure and procedures.

Controlling the Door

The seventh edition contains a new door lock matrix that provides guidance on which locks are suitable and recommended for the K-12 environment, as well as several options based on different schools’ needs. PASS recommends that all exterior doors be locked and monitored for closed and locked status, as well as installing clear way-finding signage directing visitors from anywhere on the campus to the appropriate visitor entrance, including informational signage at the door explaining the proper procedure for gaining access to the building.

Ideally while still on the exterior of the building, visitors should be able to utilize indirect communication with staff through an intercom or phone system prior to gaining access to any portion of the building. Utilizing a video doorbell system at the exterior visitor entrance door enables staff to interact with a visitor with both audio and video, allowing visual identification.

Focusing on the interior, PASS recommends that classroom doors remain “closed and locked at all times,” preferably with an indicator function.

“Only 25 percent of the classrooms in the United States can be locked from the inside, so that's something that's very alarming,” says PASS Advisory Board Chair Guy Grace, and K-12 National Security Program Manager at ASSA ABLOY, who spoke on a recent Locksmith Ledger webcast on school security. “If there's a lock down and the door is unlocked, the teacher must go out in the hallway to unlock that door from there. So, what we're seeing in K-12 is a combination of the traditional locks and hardware and electronic access control, especially indicator locks with the ability to lock the classroom from the inside. And that's not only just for the teachers, but it’s also for the students who are in that classroom to be empowered to understand how to lock the door and be able to utilize the indicator and to know that status is there.”

While many schools are not yet meeting this PASS requirement, there is a growing trend within K-12 for added security around the classroom door, especially with the addition of indicator locks.

“We’re seeing growing demand for lock-status indication in mechanical locks, driven largely by K–12 concerns about classroom security where occupants need quick confirmation a room is secured via an interior indicator and an inside-locking function (thumb-turn or key),” says Jim Bembenek, senior product manager for Mortise Locks at Allegion. “Dual-sided indicators are also rising for privacy spaces — restrooms, changing rooms and nursing rooms — so both someone from the outside and occupants can immediately see occupancy and that the door is locked. For locks with status indication, it’s simple knowing you are safe and secure while inside the room.”

Equally important is making sure the lock function provides single-motion egress from the inside.  “While being safe and secure behind a locked door is important, it’s just as important that occupants can freely exit in emergency situations,” adds Bembenek.

While K-12 and higher-ed drive demand for high-security locks with status indication, institutional and commercial markets increasingly seek electromechanical mortise locks with motorized latch retraction for local or centralized access control.

“With motorized latch retraction, it brings a more elegant, more secure solution to low traffic doors that can be controlled locally or from a central location,” notes Bembenek. “Doors can be immediately locked down in emergency situations. Among the more versatile and user-friendly options for enhancing both security and user experience are latch retraction capable locks. Most commonly these are mortise locks. Their ability to deliver smooth, quiet operation and compatibility with modern access technologies makes them especially valuable.”

Layered Access Control Approach

The new PASS guidelines also emphasize creating a layered approach to security, starting from the parking lot and moving to the first point of entry, which is a critically important area of focus. For example, the access control component contains recommendations for creating a secure visitor entry area (also referred to as secure vestibule entrances), and PASS provides white papers on this topic that focus on the importance of having a single point of entry for a school as well as having a visitor management system.

“Probably the number one national trend across our country is what we call secure entrances or vestibules, and when we look at K-12 trends across our country, that is where we're seeing a lot of improvements being done,” says Grace, noting that unifying life safety technology with access control and visitor management systems is vitally important.

“These systems provide a streamlined and efficient way to monitor and control the flow of visitors, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to the school premises.”

PASS recommends that every school should have a visitor badging system. While these systems can range from basic to advanced, at a minimum, visitor badges should be issued to all visiting individuals who are not staff or students. Moreover, PASS recommends the use of an Electronic Visitor Management System (EVMS), which streamlines the visitor sign-in process and tracks specific visitor data such as who is entering the school, when they enter, the reason for the visit, and who they are visiting.

“By requiring visitors to check in, provide identification and obtain a visitor badge, the school can easily identify anyone on campus and quickly respond to potential security threats,” he says, noting that these systems create a comprehensive record of visitors, enabling the school to track and manage who enters and exits the facility.

“This access control component is the central nervous system for a school district,” adds Michael Garcia, National K-12 End User Business Manager at HID, who is also on the PASS Advisory Board. “We want to be able to command, contain, control and communicate … to have visualization, actionable intelligence and situational awareness within the school and the entire school district.”

Another area of focus nationally is around having a duress system or panic alarm for teachers and staff.

“When we look at that trend across our country, many states are implementing legislation that requires school districts to unify duress systems and empower their staff and students with some kind of panic alarm,” says Grace. “These systems must be unified with other technology components such as access control, video management and mass notification and communication systems, for example.”

In addition, he is seeing weapons detectionin in K-12, which can be as simple as having a weapons detecting dog, like we reported on in our story Jay County school district in Indiana.

Grace says he continues to see mapping of schools being legislated in many states, which is “helpful for pre-incident planning and for helping first responders better understand how they can get into a school and know what assets are there.”

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What’s new in the Seventh Edition PASS Guidelines?

The seventh edition release – including updates to the Safety and Security Guidelines and the School Safety and Security Checklist – improves on previous versions of the PASS guidance to make it more comprehensive, easier to use, and more reflective of K-12 schools’ evolving security needs and challenges. There are many new features in the seventh edition of the PASS Guidelines, including the following significant updates:

·         Introduction of a New Digital Infrastructure Layer

The new digital infrastructure layer recognizes the importance of cybersecurity and attentive management of digital systems and data. This takes a converged approach to security, dramatically expanding PASS beyond its previous primary focus on physical security.

·         Unification of the Property Perimeter and Parking Lot Layers Into the New Campus Perimeter Layer

The many volunteer school security experts involved with PASS recognized that these layers are interconnected and more efficiently approached from a unified safety standpoint.

·         Detailed Guidance on Visitor Entry

In addition to traffic-flow diagrams and example floor plans, this edition also provides extensive coverage of aspects such as visitor management processes, which can introduce vulnerability without proper attention to detail.

·         Greater Content on Physical Hardening

From topics like door construction and window glazings to security film and reinforcement of classroom walls, the Seventh Edition Guidelines add greater depth of content on aspects of physical hardening (using security-focused design, construction, and equipment to make the physical environment more resistant to threats) than previous editions.

·         Expanded Information on Panic Alarm Systems

As panic alarm systems have gained value through innovation and have continued to prove helpful in school emergencies, the newest edition adds guidance on this vital and evolving solution.

·         In-Depth Coverage of Door Locks and Door Devices

Properly locking doors is an essential component in a school, and this version covers the complexities of school-specific lock requirements with great nuance.