Security Systems for Schools

Jon Jones ● Sep 25 ● 13 min read

In today’s day and age, the top priority for any educational facility is keeping students and staff safe and secure. Educators may find that school security planning involves a unique set of challenges. With many people entering and exiting throughout the day, it may seem difficult to implement a school security system that provides physical security without interfering with the learning environment. But, Monarch is here to help educators who strive to keep their learning environments safe. We offer a variety of options for security systems for schools.

Monarch recognizes that each school has its own set of issues, goals, and limits. After all, each educational facility has a unique design, setting, population, and other site-specific issues that call for varied degrees of flexibility and complexity to meet their particular demands. At Monarch, we will collaborate with you to build, deploy, and maintain an integrated security system for your school so you can concentrate on what really matters: creating a learning environment that encourages the future’s creators, innovators, and leaders to advance.

Security Challenges at Schools

As schools grapple with today’s challenges, it is important to partner with experienced security professionals who can help assess risks and implement effective solutions. By staying ahead of the curve, schools can keep their students, faculty, and staff safe from harm with advanced security systems. Consider some of the following security challenges faced by schools that must be addressed with a comprehensive approach:

• Gun Violence: In the wake of recent gun violence in schools, faculty must consider upgrading their security systems to include surveillance cameras, alarms, sensors, and door controllers.
• Theft & Vandalism: According to the National Education Association (NEA), a school is three times more likely to be broken into than a business. Additionally, the NEA estimates that more than $1 billion is lost to vandalism each year in schools. Thus, it’s important to deter and capture these crimes with surveillance cameras that are part of your security system.
• Unlawful Intrusions: Ensure safety and security in schools by implementing a security system that includes door controllers and readers to prevent intrusions.
• COVID-19 Safety: With schools returning to in-person operations, faculty should ensure safety through continuous monitoring of students with surveillance cameras and sensors.
• Physical Altercations: The NEA reports that 900 educators are threatened every hour of every school day. Furthermore, every hour, over 2,000 students are physically assaulted on school grounds. Keep your students and staff safe from fighting and bullying with environmental sensors that can detect excessive noise and movement.
• Vapes: Keep your students safe from the dangers of nicotine and addiction by implementing security systems with environmental sensors that can detect vaping.

Building a Security System for Schools

It is critical to address the most significant issues faced by schools such as unlawful entrance, vandalism, and school shootings while developing a school security system. But there should also be security measures in place at schools to guard against common problems like theft and physical altercations. It is also important to guarantee the safety of places like restrooms, storage facilities, and teacher lounges. At Monarch, we’re here to help you build a security system that is the best fit for your educational facility.

Explore School Security Options

 

Security Cameras

Security cameras are a critical part of school security systems. After all, schools are often sites of bullying, theft, vandalism, and even intrusions. Consider the following benefits of having school security cameras.

Protection of Students and Staff

• School security camera systems allow faculty to monitor everyone who enters and exits school gates, making it easier to recognize intruders and prevent unwanted people from entering school grounds.
• With security cameras installed as part of your overall security system, it is easy to keep an eye on public locations like parking lots that can often be sites of poor behavior and/or crime.
• The presence of security cameras on campus can enhance overall student experiences by discouraging behaviors like bullying, vandalism, and theft. Overall, security cameras enhance your security system and the feeling of safety so that students and staff may feel comfortable in their learning environment.

Resolution of Incidents

• With video footage and intelligent search filters at their disposal, administrators can rapidly locate recorded footage of significant incidents and effectively handle student conflict or behavioral issues.
• In an emergency, school staff and authorized users can submit live video footage instantaneously, significantly reducing the time it takes to contact the authorities and parents. This single feature enhances your security system by miles.

Deter Threats Proactively

• Deter threats like vandalism and theft with the use of security cameras that are wisely placed throughout school grounds.
• Improve your understanding of what is going on on school grounds by using AI analytics that are available with Verkada security systems.
• Without having to actively monitor school security cameras, you can be notified of unusual activity such as cars or individuals appearing on campus after school hours.
• In other cases, school security cameras can be utilized to help teachers and instructional aides predict misconduct and potentially prevent it.

Design and Features

Verkada offers technology that is secure and easy to use for educators. The set-up is simple: once a device is installed, it is online and fully operational within just a few minutes. Moreover, the security devices offered by Verkada do not depend on NVRs. So, you can store up to 365 days of quality footage locally. Furthermore, you can store clips in the cloud indefinitely, so you can easily share archived events when needed. Additionally, the devices of Verkada update automatically, making it easier for you to focus on your job.

Other features of our security cameras include the following:

• Secure remote access: Access your security cameras to monitor the facility at any time on any of your devices.
• Live access feeds: One can easily monitor access-based activity.
• Floor plans: Quickly respond to incidents with real-time motion plotting. With floor plans, you could also click into any device in order to view the footage of that specific device.
• People and Vehicle Analytics: Verkada offers advanced search filters. You could search for individuals by clothing color or search for vehicles by color, make, or even license plates.
• Time lapse: Watch a day of footage in under 30 seconds with timelapses.
• Live links: You can share secure access to footage or camera feeds with authorized users via SMS or link. You could also limit the duration of time that viewers can access the footage. Of course, you can also easily add, edit, or even revoke user access.

Additionally, Verkada offers security cameras that are thoughtfully designed. The cameras have a durable design, firmware signing, and can detect tampering. There are several models to choose from including the dome series, the bullet series, the fisheye series, and the mini series. Choose the security cameras that fit your needs and ensure school safety. Verkada offers school security cameras that come with the right design and features to ensure the safety and security of staff and students.

Access Control

Access control is becoming an increasingly significant component of school security systems, with more educational facilities and campuses relying on it to maintain security during and after school hours. Controlling access to areas can be done so with door readers, door controllers, and wireless locks.

Door Locks

It is important to have both external and internal door readers and controllers as part of your security system. External school door locks should be simple to use, monitor, and control. Building and fire codes require that schools have an unobstructed means of egress in the event of an evacuation. As for interior door locks – these are critical for the safety of staff and students and the security of assets.

Verkada cameras meet the following guidelines for door locks in schools: (1) without opening the door to set the lock, a teacher should be able to control the classroom door lock from the inside; (2) emergency responders must be able to enter a classroom or office without having to obtain a credential for the school door lock systems. (3) the school door locks should be easy to use and accessible to everyone, including students with disabilities; (4) door locks must adhere to all building and fire codes in order to comply with school safety regulations.

Insight on Building Access Activity

• Schools receive more visitors than you might think including prospective students or their parents; guest speakers; event vendors; or contract workers. An access control system that can handle visitor credentials ensures that visitors only have access to specific areas. This prevents theft and vandalism.
• Access control allows faculty to control who can enter and access certain areas of the campus.
• Faculty can track who is entering and leaving specific areas and when.

Intrusion Detection

• Unwanted individuals are prevented from accessing school property through access control on school grounds.
• School safety door locks deter potential crime by allowing only those with authorized credentials to unlock the door, especially at night and on weekends when the school is closed.
• Access control is also crucial for identifying intrusions when they do happen. You can filter for door events like tailgating, holding the door open, forcing the door open, and people of interest.

Asset Protection

• Misconduct is common in areas such as teacher’s lounges, storage areas, and faculty offices. Schools can prevent students and visitors from entering restricted areas by installing door lock systems that require authorized credentials.
• Safeguard library, gym, and science and computer lab equipment with controlled access school door locks. This critical learning equipment is frequently a target for theft and vandalism and must be monitored. Only authorized students or faculty will be able to gain entry into these areas by using access controlled school door locks.

Features

Verkada access control offers easy-to-use solutions for any educational facility. Consider the following features of Verkada’s access control:

• Real-Time Monitoring: Verkada seamlessly integrates access control with video security to allow teams to view what is occurring throughout the entire plant.
• Filter Events: You can quickly find and respond to access events like tailgating in real time on your dashboard.
• Remote Administration: Securly manage doors, schedules, and settings from your chosen device with cloud-based access control. You can create schedules that ensure doors are locked when needed and are secured.
• Instant Door Lockdown: Lockdown is a cloud-based feature that allows administrators to lock doors with one tap to ensure the safety of employees
• Digital Keycards: Staff can use their cellphones to unlock doors with a single tap.
• Infinite Scalability: Scalability is limitless across buildings.
• Alerts: Receive door event alerts via SMS or Email

Alarm Systems

A school alarm system like that of Verkada can go above and beyond basic security by offering crucial protection against other security threats like theft, property damage, and violence in schools. An alarm system can help deter such threats. When connected to school security cameras, door locks, and access control, integrated school alarm systems can help inform security teams of potential issues and trigger faster responses from emergency personnel or on-premise staff.

Features

There are many important features to Verkada Connected alarm systems that ensure safety and security. For example, the alarm systems can have 24/7 professional monitoring, come with emergency dispatch capabilities, and are cloud-managed.

Environmental Sensors

Verkada environmental sensors allow one to easily monitor the health and safety of students and faculty on school grounds. These sensors can detect: the temperature and humidity, vape and smoke, the air quality, noise levels, and motion. This information is ensures safety and security by providing important measures that affect student and faculty health.

Monitor for Undesirable Environments

• Place sensors in restrooms to help reduce undesirable behaviors such as bullying or vaping
• Measure humidity to avoid mold formation on school grounds
• Measure air quality to ensure there is clean air for students and faculty

Explore School Security Options

Why Choose Verkada for School Security Systems?

(1) Easy Install and Use

Verkada offers an integrated security platform that can protect students and faculty from different forms of threats. We offer new standards for security. For example, our devices are easy to install, use, and maintain. All of our products have a plug-and-play design meaning that our devices are online within minutes of installation without any configurations on your part. Moreover, you can easily access any device of your organization from any browser or device of yours. Lastly, Verkada products have automatic security and software updates which reduces maintenance overhead.

(3) Guaranteed Scalability

The security systems offered by Verkada do not depend on servers or networks. Thus, we are able to guarantee centralized device management. In other words, you can manage all of your devices on one single cloud-managed platform. Moreover, our security systems have unlimited cloud archiving, making it simple to store and organize critical footage.

(3) Secure from the Beginning

All devices from Verkada are secure by default. Our security systems have end-to-end encryption. In other words, only authorized, inbound connections are accepted and able to access data. Moreover, our security systems offer role-based access. This means administrations are able to configure the levels of user permissions. Lastly, you can view the usage of systems to ensure compliance and internal control with the audit logs that our systems offer.

How Verkada Works for Schools

At Monarch, we recognize the importance of collaborating with educators, government officials, and law enforcement to provide a secure learning environment for youth. We’ve worked with small, local public schools to large universities, providing us with an understanding of the variety of school-specific needs.

The Roles of IT and Security

With centralized physical management, IT and security teams can readily and remotely access any information needed if they have the authorization.

The Roles of Superintendents and Faculty

District superintendents and school faculty can also remotely monitor the facility because of centralized device management. Essentially, to monitor the school, one only needs to go onto one platform and all the information is there. This allows the faculty to quickly find, share, and even save footage for any investigations thereby saving the district from costs that could disrupt annual budgets. Lastly, one can protect student privacy with a feature that automatically blurs faces.

The Roles of Security

Lastly, those in security roles can reduce emergency response time through proactive monitoring. One also receives real-time updates for unusual behavior, especially after school hours. Finally, to keep students safe from any unwanted intruder, one can easily activate instant lockdown from any device.

All in all, a Verkada security system offered by Monarch guarantees safety and security for everyone involved in protecting students and faculty. Purchase your devices here today.

 

 

Updated: Oct 10