Columbine 10 Years Later: The State of School Safety Today

CS survey shows that K-12 and university campus security programs have made huge strides since this terrible tragedy. Despite this, matters like bully prevention, technology deployment, staffing levels and funding require greater attention.

Access Control Improved in 55% of Campuses
Thanks to the greater awareness resulting from the Columbine tragedy, as well as government mandates and grant programs, lockdowns and shelter-in-place drills are much more common on K-12 campuses. Access control is also much improved at many schools and universities, although not all. “Our schools are so vulnerable because of their physical layout here in California,” says Ethan Hoff, safe school administrator for San Juan Unified School District. “Most have multiple entrances, so it’s impossible without physically redesigning the site.”

Despite the concerns of those responsible for open campuses, according to the CS survey, 52 percent of K-12 respondents and 56 percent of university campuses have installed or upgraded their access control equipment. Thirty-one percent believe upgraded access control is one of the top five things a campus can do to improve security.

According to Marty Pessetti, assistant principal of Lakeview High School in Battlecreek, Mich., the process of upgrading access control can be tedious but is well worth the trouble. “We found there were a lot of maintenance issues in our buildings we had to deal with — doors that wouldn’t close,” he says. “We had to work hard with our maintenance department to get them to work on those issues so they understood their importance.”

Pessetti conducted practice lockdowns so he and his team could tour the buildings to look for issues, such as overgrown shrubs. “The first time we did them, we had a huge list of things,” he adds. “Slowly but surely, we whittled away at them. Because our building principals did the tours with us, they now have a better idea of what they should be looking for. They are now picking up the slack.” For some respondents, however, the cost of access control upgrades continues to be a barrier to its implementation. For example, Jerry Sturmer, who is director of educational safety and security for the Rialto (Calif.) Unified School District, wants to retrofit 30 of his district’s schools. “The technology is there if we just had the resources to put it in place,” he says.

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About the Author

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Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.

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