Schools should be a safe place to explore, learn and engage; however, reality doesn’t always match the ideal. With an increase of violence in schools over the past decade, school leaders are looking to equip their districts with the best security solutions possible, including onsite security guards. Yet does having security personnel who patrol your hallways actually make schools safer?
It’s a question that truly depends on quality vs. quantity.
With the heightened attention given to school safety, staffing companies are flocking to meet the growing demands for onsite security guards. The model we most commonly see focuses on the size of the campus and the number of students within each building, similar to how you might staff for janitorial, transportation or cafeteria personnel. And here is why you need to be leery of this model: you cannot staff security personnel based on an arbitrary number. You need to provide staffing based on the unique needs of the school district.
At SEC, we want to change this model and provide your district with both the quality and the consistency needed for a truly safe environment. When it comes to security in schools, there are two key elements to consider: the reality of safety (how safe you really are) and the perception of safety (how safe you really feel). While it can feel safe to place security guards within your schools, we want to increase how safe you truly are, by providing personnel who have been properly trained in school environments and who have a team of experts and resources to always lean on.
When it comes to best practice, it’s important to remember that school security guards require a higher level of training and a unique set of skills, specific to interacting with students. A school security guard needs to be able to develop relationships with students. They provide a consistent presence each day, greeting students as they enter first thing in the morning and interacting with them daily throughout the entire school year. A quality school security guard knows how to build trust, exercise empathy through good listening skills and ultimately, serve as a positive role model to students for a lifetime.
Second, and equally important, is the need to choose security personnel for the specific needs of your district. Just as you may hire a new principal who has the right personality and experience for your rural high school, as an example, your security personnel should also have experience that fits the environment, culture and student population they serve. Be leery of guards who have served in multiple industries but are not experts in the school setting.
Since SEC has already conducted your site assessment and understands your district’s unique safety and security needs, we can choose and train the right security personnel for you. We can also serve as an ongoing resource and extension of expertise to your security personnel. Most staffing companies do not have school safety experts who own the company. At SEC, we are the school safety experts. When your security personnel have questions on behavioral threat management, school investigations, crisis communication or emergency response protocols, our team of experts is available to lean on, at any time throughout the school year.
School security should never be compromised. Our students, our families and our communities depend on it, every single day. SEC is here to help.
If you already have security personnel in place, let us help train and certify them to be competent in your district’s security goals and with the right skill sets needed for school environments. We now offer one-day certification workshops that can be delivered onsite and include the following key components:
- Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Training
- Behavioral Threat Assessment
- Critical Incident Response Training
- School Law & Policy Overview
- CPR, AED & Stop the Bleed training
- De-Escalation Training