School Safety Archives - Page 2 of 3

The Benefits of Enhancing Your District’s Comprehensive School Safety Ecosystem with Video Surveillance and Access Control

WSI Comandix on January 5, 2023

A truly tragic and unfortunate truth is that the number of school shootings across the country continues to rise. Now, more than ever, it is incredibly important to consider ways to ensure greater security of our school district buildings and grounds, including video surveillance and access control systems.

At Eastern DataComm, our proprietary Lockdown and Emergency Notification System, LENS + OPTICS, integrates with a myriad of safety and physical security technologies. Video surveillance and access control are two additional technological systems that, when used in unison with LENS + OPTICS, schools are able to ensure swift notification and response to emergencies like active shooter threats.

Video surveillance solutions provide a holistic view of what goes on within your buildings and grounds. They offer a way to monitor employees, create records of daily activities, and protect against potential threats. Access control systems allow administrators to require credentials of those who wish to access your buildings, or areas within them, while offering insight on a multitude of types of activities, including if there has been a potential threat or breach. When you integrate your video surveillance system with your access control system, the result is a more robust safety and physical security solution. Comprehensive solutions enhance your school safety ecosystem in a multitude of ways.

While the exact benefits you enjoy as a result of this approach to school safety will be unique to your specific school or district community, there are a few ‘pros’ that are most common. These two systems work in concert to ensure oversight, mitigate potential risks, and help you gain an ongoing practical understanding of potential areas of vulnerability.

In this month’s blog article, we’re exploring these benefits in greater detail.

Planning Your Integration of Video Surveillance and Access Control Helps to Identify and Address Potential Areas of Vulnerability

Here’s something that may surprise you: The benefits of implementing video surveillance and access control systems in your school community begin before you ever install a single component.

In fact, when you work with an experienced school safety and communication technology team like those at Eastern DataComm, you’ll experience a diagnostic and consultative process that allows you to identify your security strengths and potential areas of vulnerability. From common blindspots for video surveillance systems to areas where doors are usually left propped open throughout the day to ensuring total safety and security technology coverage, our team has the experience and expertise to empower you to make choices that best safeguard your community. The result is a comprehensive view of what’s truly needed to provide the highest level of effectiveness when it comes to your video surveillance and access control systems, working in unison with your communications and emergency notifications technologies.

When you create a partnership with a trusted team who best understands how multiple systems must work together, you can streamline key steps in your process by working with a singular point of contact. This makes everything, from planning to implementation to maintenance, far easier and more cost effective over the long term.

Mitigating Risk and Ensuring Greater Physical Security for Your Campus Buildings and Grounds

Another important reason to consider access control and video surveillance solutions for your school or district is the benefit of potential risk mitigation.

Of course, considerations regarding liability in the event of an incident are also a priority item that technological resources can help to address. Having physical security and cybersecurity measures in place that do more than simply ‘check a box’ not only answer those liability questions, but can even further reduce the opportunity for an emergency event to result in damage or loss of life.

To augment your ability to view, assess, and respond to potential threats, you may opt to include additional technological safeguards that integrate well with access control and video surveillance systems. Those who seek even more protective measures often decide that a visitor management system, facial recognition, or gunshot detection technologies are the right fit for their school community to further reduce potential risks and threats.

But, when it comes to creating greater physical security in your district and reducing or eliminating risks, the implementation of both access control and video surveillance technologies takes your school safety profile to the next level of protection.

Integrating These Systems Delivers Peace of Mind When It Matters Most

Finally, when you use access control and video surveillance in your school safety ecosystem, you have more than one method in place to ensure the physical security of your school community. You can rest assured knowing that you’re doing all you can to swiftly respond to emergencies like active shooter situations, and even prevent the potential for tragedies from occurring on your campus.

With systems that give you the best means of notification and response when every second counts, you empower law enforcement and first responders to be as prepared as possible to address and neutralize an identified threat. You’ll know that you’ve done all you could to protect those in your buildings and on your grounds.

And the value of that peace of mind simply cannot be overstated.

Combining Solutions for a Holistic Approach to School Safety: LENS + OPTICS

In addition to integrating your video surveillance and access control systems, our LENS + OPTICS solution incorporates your PA system, LED sign boards, beacons, pre-recorded announcements, text and related alerts, and automatic calls to police and first responders. The system’s integration with access control systems and video surveillance solutions assists law enforcement professionals as they define the location of the threat in question and quickly limit entry and exit in specific locations. The result is the initiation of a lockdown, evacuation, or shelter-in place at the push of a button. Leveraging integrated technology systems to issue that rapid response limits potential for human error by automating vital parts of the process along the way – an invaluable asset when presented with an emergency event.

Stay Connected and Protected with Eastern DataComm

To explore what it would mean to enhance your school safety ecosystem with Eastern DataComm, contact us at [email protected] for a Complimentary School Safety Consultation!

We’re here to help you find the right solutions for your school or district!

The Safety Implications and Importance of Total Coverage

WSI Comandix on November 7, 2022

Our nation seems to be locked in an unending battle to keep our school communities safe havens for learning and growth, free from violent acts like the active shooter tragedies that have left in their wake unimaginable devastation. Unceasingly, education and law enforcement officials wrestle with what to do to keep their students, faculty, staff, and visitors safe during an emergency. At Eastern DataComm, we have been helping US schools transform their emergency notification with customized, integrated technology solutions for years. And today, we’re sharing one of the most essential components of emergency notification: total emergency communication coverage.

What Does Total Coverage Really Mean and Why Is That Benchmark Too Often Missed?

‘Total coverage’ means that everyone within school buildings and on campus grounds – and we do mean everyone, from students to new substitute teachers to visitors – can swiftly receive and understand emergency notifications. This cornerstone of the school safety ecosystem may seem like an obvious one. However, countless times, during our School Safety Audits, we unearth vulnerabilities that truly take an expert eye to be able to reveal. Though safety is a paramount concern for all school officials, it takes a partner with both the technology savvy and thorough understanding of school operations and facilities to map out and execute the solution implementation that achieves total coverage.

That said, we find at times that schools are unknowingly providing safety solutions that only achieve partial coverage. While it’s clear that such an oversight is not intentional, it may lead to a false sense of security when there are potentially devastating gaps in the emergency notification process.

Missing the total coverage benchmark may look different depending on the school. Perhaps an older paging system is in use that still ‘works’, but doesn’t deliver messages that are clearly audible and able to be understood by all. Alternatively, there may not be enough speakers in loud or outdoor areas, so again, a message can be missed when there are other sound/noise elements at play. Another frequent case we encounter is that some schools will opt to rely on a single mode of notification like a text alert-only system to provide notifications without realizing that single-mode communication has notable downsides.

In each of these cases, there is a greater chance that someone or a group of people may not receive or understand the emergency notification in a way that allows them to respond accordingly when every second counts.

What Total Coverage and True Preparedness Looks Like

Families, school leaders, and district administrators know that unless 100% of those in their buildings and on their grounds are notified in the event of an emergency, they’re not truly prepared to respond fully. Lack of total coverage introduces the possibility for error and puts people in harm’s way.

In light of this knowledge, it’s important to consider what true preparedness through total coverage means for school communities and districts.

The key to achieving total coverage is the ability to use technology solutions like the paging and related systems as comprehensively as possible. Complete coverage, no doubt, includes an indoor and outdoor PA system and accompanying wireless speakers. It will also include visual cues such as LED beacons and signboards in high-volume or noise-polluted areas such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, and music rooms. The goal is to have both auditory and visual cues reach such spaces, even the remote areas like parking lots and sports fields.

This multimodal approach to total coverage ensures that no matter where someone might be on your school campus grounds, they can be easily and near-instantaneously made aware of an emergency situation once the threat is recognized.

Common Challenges to Achieving Total Coverage

While total coverage is an extremely important component of the school safety ecosystem, there are often factors that can impede a school community from achieving it.

The challenges to overcome may include, but are not limited to:

Loud areas within a building (like cafeterias and gyms)
Distant outdoor spaces (like remote parking lots and sports fields)
Areas where students don’t have phone/smart device access (like technical education classrooms, athletic practices, or labs)
Unique structural design considerations (especially in older buildings) that can impair signal, and ultimately message reception

Additional considerations are at play for schools that serve special needs or other unique populations when emergency notification and communication are concerned. This warrants solutions that are custom-tailored to enable all present on campus to know of an impending threat regardless of ability.

We’ve found that administrators and leaders at these schools understand this critical importance. When it comes to their pursuit of total coverage, it’s of top priority that they do all they can to understand potential shortcomings in their emergency notification approach. Through careful examination of facilities and daily operations, it becomes possible to ensure that these students are able to receive and act upon emergency notifications.

This is especially true when a school has a unique population. When working with St. Joseph’s School for the Blind, for example, Eastern DataComm collaborated with school officials to design a solution and develop a project plan that recognized the needs of the students with special needs, specifically visual impairments. The system featured multimodal approaches to notification that went beyond typical text or audio notification. This resulted in a custom-tailored solution that keeps all persons on campus connected and protected.

Total Coverage Is Unique to You

Just as schools that serve special populations must address some unique facets of total coverage, it’s important to understand that your school or district’s total coverage solution will look different than another school or district’s approach. Through serving hundreds of schools over the years, our team has learned that it is the absolute truth: No two schools are exactly alike. Your needs and vulnerabilities will inform how you set your school up for success and how you address your school’s challenges to achieve total notification coverage.

At Eastern DataComm, we understand comprehensive system design and work with your building and facility managers to best serve your school’s structural blueprint in unison with your existing technology footprint. We strive for a seamless integration that allows for all systems, across facilities, to work together to provide the best in total coverage.

For instance, some areas incur more noise pollution than others. We adapt our approach to ensure there is no disruption of emergency notification messaging, regardless of competing sounds. The result is not simply the placement across the entirety of your school grounds, but the use of additional speakers, or visual cues like signboards and LED beacons where you need them most (from technical education classrooms and gyms to fields and parking lots).

Total Coverage Means Taking Sound Quality and Audibility Seriously

Another important aspect of total coverage involves working with a technology partner that understands the vital part audibility and sound quality play when it comes to emergency notification.

Just as you wouldn’t rely on a single mode of notification, you don’t want to rely on a mode of communication that’s hard to hear or comprehend.

At Eastern DataComm, our consultative and diagnostic process involves an in-depth approach to evaluating your needs. We don’t rely on any ‘guess and check’ approaches to technology solution implementation because our methodology is practical, not just theoretical. Our assessment uses tactics to get a true sense of your school campus’s needs, strengths, and potential vulnerabilities. We use that information to inform the recommendations we make regarding how you and your school community can achieve total coverage.

And because we’ve been working for years with hundreds of schools of various sizes and populations, you can feel confident that you’ve chosen the right technology partner. No matter the scale of what comprises your buildings and grounds, we have the prior project experience and practical knowledge to give you the best-in-class safety and communications solutions.

Understanding, for example, how elements like carpet, hardwood, cement walls, student activity, and indoor or outdoor space can impact the acoustics of a space or otherwise impact the ability for notification to be received and understood – that expertise separates us from others in the field who provide one-size-fits-all solutions that leave vulnerabilities on the table and potential for catastrophe to creep in to a school’s safety ecosystem. When you work with Eastern DataComm, the result is total coverage when you need it most.

Bring Total Coverage to Your School Community with Eastern DataComm

For a comprehensive approach to keeping your community safe through total emergency notifications coverage, contact Eastern DataComm for a complimentary School Safety Consultation.

Apps Aren’t Enough: How Holistic, Comprehensive Approaches to School Safety Save Lives

WSI Comandix on October 7, 2022

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In the wake of numerous school shootings nationwide, it is becoming a hard-learned but valuable lesson for many school administrators and law enforcement officials that effective lockdown response goes far beyond just a text message notification system.

In fact, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District (CISD) held a school board meeting with concerned families and community members to share its ongoing efforts to improve school security through enhanced wifi, additional cameras, and other improvements after its own tragedy earlier this year. Though apps are one component that can improve school safety, they cannot work in isolation to achieve the highest levels of safety for a campus. Rather, emergency notification apps are one channel of communication that comprises the larger school safety ecosystem.

In this blog article, we’ll explore the different elements of a fully robust, comprehensive technology solution. We’ll also apply learnings from recent tragedies to provide actionable recommendations that school officials can utilize as we all endeavor to make schools safer places to nurture young minds. Let’s begin…
Keeping Your District Safe Requires More Than “Security Theater”

When it comes to keeping your school campus and the students, staff, and visitors within it safe in an emergency, every second counts. One of the best ways to mitigate damage and save lives in an urgent event is to remove as much room for human error as possible. For that reason, we encourage school districts and officials to do all they can to utilize technology solutions that remove the potential for mistakes or communications errors.

This is, perhaps, why so many schools and districts have moved toward text-only notifications to initiate all aspects of a lockdown: The use of this technology appears to remove all potential for human error by simplifying emergency response to a single message delivered directly to one’s phone.

However, while these systems may look to be streamlined and impactful, they still rely very heavily on human action. As a result, they often neglect the efficiency, swiftness, and dependability that can be found with more comprehensive, integrated, and automated systems.

‘Security theater’ is the phrase that commonly describes such responses: On paper, they appear to be helpful. The intention IS to be helpful. The creators of these technologies designed them to be valuable, and districts earnestly believe they will address their safety and security concerns. Families may even feel comforted that their district is employing a technology solution. But in practice, these solutions are not as effective working alone as they need to be to truly provide for the safety and security of the school.

One way to avoid entering this realm of security theater (where the intent is good, but the impact is not as sufficient as needed) is to ask two vital questions:

Will this technology ensure that everyone who needs to be notified of the danger receives the emergency announcement quickly?

And most importantly of all:

Is this approach the most effective way to save lives in an emergency?

When it comes to text-only solutions, while the intent is good, the results simply don’t fully rise to the occasion as they require a set of necessary conditions to function properly and require that the first person who sees a threat has a cell phone and the ability to activate the emergency message system. These required circumstances may not always be present and when they are not, the effectiveness of the text-only system will surely be reduced.
Holistic Lockdown Notification and Response: Recognizing Complexities and Addressing Potential Vulnerabilities

One essential part of effective emergency response is the recognition of the complexities and potential vulnerabilities that your school or district faces.

When it comes to application-only or text-only solutions, this is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of emergency response.

And, in addition to poor cell phone service in a particular building or area (an all-too-common challenge for many schools), when we consider how infrequently students and teachers are accessing their phones during the school day, the vulnerability that underlies text-based notification of an emergency becomes clear.

In fact, many students and even faculty are not permitted or are asked not to be on their devices in the classroom, on sports fields, or in other campus areas. Further, small children, those in science labs, and those engaging in physical education or technical education classes may not have access to their phones during an emergency. And in most cases, schools don’t include students as a target population for message dissemination when using an application or text-based only solution. This means that students not only lack the ability to initiate a lockdown themselves, but they’re also not notified by phone that an emergency event is in progress regardless of whether or not they have a phone on their person at the time of lockdown initiation. Leaving this critical population out of the communication loop can be a serious misstep when looking to ensure the safety of the entire community during an active shooter or other emergency event.

While a particular school or district may adjust its handbook to allow for the use of cell phones in the classroom, the issue of accessibility remains. Students with unique financial or personal circumstances, learning differences, or disabilities may not have access to or the ability to properly utilize cell phones or applications for the purpose of emergency notification.

Holistic Lockdown Notification and Response: Recognizing Complexities and Addressing Potential … Teachers, school counselors, and other school personnel may have guidelines that require them not to use personal cell phones for school purposes or may keep their personal cell in desks, purses, or cars.

Of course, substitute educators or staff as well as visitors may not have access to the applications that would notify them of an emergency.

Each of these circumstances adds a level of complexity to the potential vulnerabilities faced by administrators when implementing solely a text-based or app-only solution rather than employing it as a component of the school safety ecosystem.

The school safety ecosystem includes a wide range of considerations including personnel, process, protocol, and technology. From multi-line phone systems and strong internet connections to PA systems and video surveillance, these pieces interact with one another in ways that are truly unique to each school. Whether we consider a campus’s geographic layout, infrastructure, or communications needs, the emergency response solution that will be most effective is as distinctive as the school where the response will take place.

And because quick, cookie-cutter solutions really cannot address the complexities that schools encounter during a lockdown situation, a robust, integrated solution that rounds out the school safety ecosystem is ideal. Let’s explore a solution that addresses these concerns…
LENS + OPTICS: A Comprehensive Alternative to Text-Alert-Only Lockdown Notification and Emergency Response
Only One Piece of the Puzzle

Text-alert systems, given their typical price point, are an often-alluring way to feel protected when an urgent situation arises for a shockingly economical fee. After all, apps and text-only alerts do provide schools and districts with the ability to send out email and SMS messages swiftly, which is certainly a vital part of enacting a lockdown. However, when every second counts, these messages should be just one of many components that are activated as part of your school safety ecosystem.
Liability Considerations

While text-alert-only systems may appear to be a very wallet-friendly approach to lockdown response, what really acts as a mitigator for a lockdown-style event is a comprehensive solution. In fact, a holistic approach to emergency response often reduces the chance of litigation. App-only approaches involve a great deal of liability considering many do not account for those who may not have their phone or computer at their side during the emergency event or those with certain special needs or disabilities that cannot access the app or text alerts. Taking a holistic approach also goes further in preventing tragedies like the Uvalde and Parkland school shootings by offering a customized, robust solution in place of a quick fix.
No Two School Communities Are Exactly Alike

In an emergency, what schools truly need is a system of technology solutions that integrate with one another seamlessly. This allows them to keep costs down as they ensure the physical security of those in their buildings and on their grounds. Schools also need to consider their student and staff populations, the logistics of their daily routines, the grounds themselves, the building layouts, and rooms that have unique characteristics. Additional considerations extend to the ways in which schools can eliminate the chance of human error when every second counts. Even the most innovative text-only applications cannot achieve this level of customization. But, an integrated system, like Eastern DataComm’s LENS + OPTICS can.
LENS + OPTICS Is :

Fast-Acting: To have the greatest impact on mitigating damage and loss of life, it is imperative for a technological solution to issue rapid communications during lockdown or active shooter events. Once triggered, the LENS + OPTICS system deploys emergency notifications within seconds of activation.

Automated: Human error can and should be avoided at all costs. Automation significantly decreases the opportunity for error and provides the ability for rapid communication when every second counts. LENS + OPTICS is a fully-automated emergency alert solution. Once it is triggered, the potential for human error is removed from the equation.

Communication-Facilitating: Unlike apps, LENS + OPTICS does not require someone to have a cell phone on them to benefit from the notification and response features it provides. Auditory and visual emergency announcements need to cover the entire school grounds, both inside and outside of buildings – wherever students, faculty, or staff may be – so that all are aware and able to react to the emergency alert.

Integrated: LENS + OPTICS ensures everyone on school grounds is immediately notified of the emergency situation no matter where they are on campus. Furthermore, contingencies like access to a cell phone and availability of cellular service do not impact the LENS + OPTICS functionality or its emergency notification dissemination. The system works in unison with other technology solutions to blanket a campus, both inside of buildings and across the grounds, to ensure all are aware of the emergency notification messaging. The system offers a variety of accessible forms of notification, including visual and auditory cues such as strobes, LED sign boards, PC pop-ups, text messages, and audio recordings. It integrates with video surveillance, access control, VoIP phone systems, and school bells, as well as your indoor and outdoor PA systems and paging system. And yes, text messages are a component of the communications that are employed with this solution, but for the reasons we’ve enumerated above, they are not the sole contributor to campus-wide emergency notification.

While the technology itself is robust, it’s the consultative and diagnostic approach of our Eastern DataComm team that ensures it’s as effective as possible for you and your school or district. We carefully examine your campus for potential areas of vulnerability to ensure that there is proper coverage in all areas. Working in unison with the latest in access control and video surveillance technologies, our team creates a truly encompassing solution that lends to the highest standards of safety and physical security for your school community.
Enhance Your District’s School-Wide Communications and Physical Security with Eastern DataComm

For a holistic approach to keeping your community safe, contact Eastern DataComm for a complimentary School Safety Consultation.

Empowering Schools With Insight That Helps Protect Their Communities

WSI Comandix on September 8, 2022

With the Parkland school shooting trial making headlines and the memory of the recent Uvalde, Texas, shooting in mind, there’s no more pressing a time than now to focus on school district campus-wide safety protocols.

At Eastern DataComm, we’re as committed as ever to empowering school districts across the country to take proactive steps in protecting their school communities, with the goal of preventing incidents like those named above and a long list of others from ever happening again. Responding effectively and swiftly should these potentially devastating events transpire is the absolute best way to mitigate damage and loss of life.

For this reason, our team will be traveling near and far this fall to host an educational seminar series called What Schools Must Do to Prepare for a Lockdown or an Active Shooter Event. We’ll be visiting a number of towns in New Jersey and Connecticut, doing our part to share this valuable information with school officials. We’ll continue to expand our footprint with these educational opportunities, so stay tuned for when our team will be in a town near you.

Today, we’d like to share a preview of those presentations with you so you know what is in store for our attendees with the hopes that you’ll be joining us in the upcoming weeks.

What We’ll Cover In Our Upcoming Seminars

Our presentation is engineered to support K–12 Superintendents and Business Administrators, School Safety and Security Professionals, School District IT Professionals, Higher Education Administrators, and those entrusted with ensuring the safety of school district students, faculty, and staff within your district.

What Schools Must Do to Prepare for a Lockdown or an Active Shooter Event is a workshop designed to assist school leaders in understanding how they can leverage technology to create safer schools inside and out.

In addition to detailing the key elements of school safety ecosystems and the challenges schools face when dealing with active threats, we’ll share insight on how emergency notification solutions, access control systems, video surveillance systems, and multi-line VoIP phone systems can help schools effectively respond to emergencies like active shooter incidents. We’ll share what other districts have done to successfully improve safety within their schools so that attendees can benefit from real-world experiences that others in their field have faced.

We’ll define the 3 principles every emergency notification solution needs to address to be effective in a crisis and why recent legislation and guidelines may fall short of thoroughly preparing schools for a lockdown or active shooter event. Seeing is believing. We’ll provide a live demonstration of Eastern DataComm’s emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS, to show attendees exactly how technology can and should work in their favor to help avert disaster.

Practical Insight And Interactive Feedback On Active Shooter Response

The workshop will also provide examples that explore the previous active shooter events that made national headlines. Our presenter, Eastern DataComm’s School Safety Advisor, Paul Jenne, will breakdown how these events unfolded and provide practical solutions to address the failure points that led to these tragic outcomes.

We’ll conclude the workshop with a discussion featuring thought leaders in education and technology, along with an audience Q&A. We encourage all of our attendees to come prepared with lots of questions for our team of experts to answer.

In addition to the vital information we shared last year, we’ll be discussing the recent shootings that made headlines, and how a comprehensive system to effectively respond to such events includes technology solutions like emergency notification, phone systems, paging, video surveillance, and access control.

If you attended last year’s seminar, there is certainly more to be learned and new ground to cover. With the content entirely refreshed for a new school year, we’re looking forward to seeing both new and familiar faces in the crowd.

We’ll also tackle some of our most-asked school safety questions we’ve heard from educators across the nation. Some of those queries include:

How do we ensure notifications cover the entire property in an urban environment or an open campus environment?
What if your campus does not have an overhead intercom system?
How can you send an emergency announcement from outside the building?
Do all VoIP systems work with e-911?
If budget is limited, and a school needs to prioritize which aspects of safety technology they need to upgrade first, where would you recommend they start?
Is there a way to monitor an emergency notification system to ensure it is working optimally?

A Workshop That Helps You Prepare For Moments When Every Second Counts

In an active shooter event or other emergency warranting a lockdown or shelter-in-place, every second counts. We firmly believe that when it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

That’s why we’re offering this presentation in a variety of locations this fall with more to come in the spring.

Our goal is to help as many schools as possible prevent devastating incidents. Though we cannot stop someone from deciding to perpetrate horrendous acts, we can and will do our best to stop them from doing the damage they intend to inflict.

Connect With Us And Join Us For The Workshop This Fall

We’d love to welcome you to one of our upcoming events. Please be sure to follow us on social media to keep apprised of the latest educational opportunities in your area. You can also check back on our Seminar page to see when and where new locations are added. Our current roster includes:

Thursday, October 6 – Maggiano’s of Hackensack, NJ

Tuesday, October 11 – Hartford, CT Marriott

Wednesday, October 12 – Stamford, CT Marriott

Tuesday, October 18 – Maggiano’s of Cherry Hill, NJ

Wednesday, October 19 – Maggiano’s of Bridgewater, NJ

Ready to explore the best ways to keep your school or district safe this fall before our seminars commence? Contact us here to schedule a Complimentary School Safety Consultation.

Technology and the School Safety Ecosystem: Fostering Safer Schools

WSI Comandix on July 1, 2022

There are a variety of channels that encompass the ‘safety ecosystem’ in schools. School safety and police officers, training, threat assessment, procedures and protocols for emergencies, compliance, and technology infrastructure essentials like emergency notification systems, video surveillance, and access control systems can all play a vital role in keeping schools and districts safe before, during, and after emergencies like active shooter events.

But, just how can school districts apply this multichannel safety and communications approach to their own campuses to prevent tragedies like the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas?

Let’s explore the connection between effective emergency response plans and the technology that supports them as part of the comprehensive school safety ecosystem.

The School Safety Ecosystem and Planning For Emergencies

The school safety ecosystem includes a wide range of considerations, personnel, and components – including process, protocol, technology. When considering the ecosystem as a whole, it’s important to recognize that the composition of each school is unique, each with its own geographic layout, infrastructure, and communications needs. That means the plans that will be most effective in an emergency are equally distinctive.

In The Building Blocks To School Safety Toolkit from the Readiness and Emergency Management For Schools Technical Assistance Center, The U.S. Department of Education outlines the tools school districts can use to develop effective emergency operations plans (EOPs). It notes that high-quality emergency plans are supported by school safety ecosystem elements including leadership and technology infrastructure. The report also recognizes the importance of considering times and circumstances, customizing plans at the building-by-building level, and addressing the unique needs of the entire school community.

At Eastern DataComm, our consultative and diagnostic approach allows us to ensure that our customers’ school safety and security technology infrastructure supports such plans.

The customized solutions we recommend and implement for the school districts we serve connect key aspects of the school safety ecosystem like law enforcement, prevention, communication, risk management, and technology. These approaches are designed to enhance communication within and between the different parts of that system, creating a comprehensive approach to emergency response.

We work with clients to personalize their technology solutions, including their emergency notification systems, to the specific needs of their individual schools and (where appropriate) the district as a whole.

In the National Institute of Justice’s Comprehensive Report on School Safety Technology, the U.S. Department of Justice notes that technologies like connecting security systems to mobile devices, using cloud-based systems, enhanced video surveillance, and integrated hardware and software can be part of effective school safety technology infrastructure.

The report further states that decisions about investing in such security technologies are multilayer assessments that need to account for the school district’s unique economic and logistical factors among others. The Department of Justice recommends a comprehensive and collaborative evaluation and planning process before selecting technology solutions.

Learning From Tragedy: Using Technology to Reduce The Chances Of Human Error During Emergency Events

When it comes to emergencies, it goes without saying that the one hope is that everyone involved will do the best that they can to respond effectively. However, the stress and urgency of the moment can lead to human error that can cost both time and lives.

As such, integrating technology assets like emergency notification systems, access control, and video surveillance within the school safety ecosystem is essential. It limits the potential for misjudgment by automating critical portions of the emergency notification and response process.

When integrated properly, these solutions can provide holistic coverage of school campuses, leading to rapid response times. Simply put, leveraging technology helps to inform, connect, and engage multiple parts of the school safety ecosystem swiftly to better ensure safety for students, faculty, staff, and visitors.

Response time is the key factor that can make or break the positive resolution of an emergency situation. In the wake of the recent school shooting tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, we’re reminded that human error is possible and what results from it in dire circumstances can be catastrophic.

According to a timeline of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting provided by CNN, at 11:28 AM the shooter crashed his car near the school. U.S. Marshals noted that a 911 call was received at 11:30. By 11:31 the suspect had traversed the parking lot and began shooting at the school. Uvalde police arrived moments later at 11:35, but by 11:33 the shooter was already inside, firing multiple rounds into a classroom.

Within mere minutes, the devastation had already begun. Finally, at 12:50 PM, officers unlocked the door to the classroom where the shooter was and killed the gunman.

Even with a great deal of police presence, the shooter was able to enter the building and perpetrate horrendous acts of violence against unarmed, innocent victims during the very early minutes of arriving in the building.

Aside from the reminder that classroom and exterior doors should remain locked during the school day, lessons learned from this tragedy highlight that without an automated emergency notification system, petrified teachers and students could be the ones to make 911 calls instead of having such notifications automated, quickening response times and reducing potential human error.

As evidenced by this example and the many other unfortunate headlines we’ve already read about school shootings, the world has shifted considerably in the last few years. We continue to see gun violence and aggression on school campuses increase across the country for a myriad of reasons. As an organization, Eastern DataComm could not sit idly by while our nation continues to lose children, teachers, and school administrators to violent acts. Though we cannot stop someone from making the decision to cause harm, we can do our part to help make the future a safer one.

LENS + OPTICS: Rapid And Effective Emergency Notification For Your School Safety Ecosystem

To better safeguard our communities, Eastern DataComm has developed the lockdown and emergency notification system and continuous monitoring service, LENS + OPTICS. The system is designed to effectively communicate danger quickly to mitigate damage and loss of life.

Whether it’s an active shooter, lockdown, or another urgent event, thoughtful planning and an understanding of the school safety ecosystem combined with effective technology solutions help

school districts respond more effectively and foster safer school environments. And as we all can agree, a safe school environment empowers the learning and growth that educational institutions aim to achieve.

Learn more about LENS+OPTICS

Discover The Most Effective Ways To Support Your School Safety Ecosystem With Eastern DataComm

When it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

Our team of advisors and technicians is here to share our years of experience and insight on safety and communications technology solutions to help you better protect your school community when every second counts.

To learn more about how our team can help you design and implement an effective emergency notification system for your school district, book your complimentary School Safety Consultation by completing this contact form.

Is Your School District’s Phone System Compliant With New FCC Regulations?

WSI Comandix on April 6, 2022

In light of two recent federal laws strengthening the effectiveness of emergency calls, many schools are taking a more critical look at their multiline telephone systems. Today, we’re sharing some of the key aspects of these two laws and an opportunity to better understand their impact while implementing changes that help ensure the safety and security of your school community.

Kari’s Law

If your school district’s multi-line phone system still requires you to dial 9, or any other number, before reaching an outside line, you’ll want to learn more about Kari’s Law.

This Federal Communications Commission regulation implements a set of changes that impact multiline telephone communications like those often found in schools and districts nationwide. The FCC regulation now requires such systems to allow users to dial 911 without entering a prefix. In addition, Kari’s Law requires that notification to another resource (for many districts this would be a security office) is received when a 911 call is made.

While this law is designed to ensure easier and more comprehensive emergency communication, many older or less integrated phone systems will need to be enhanced or upgraded to allow for these changes.

Ray Baum’s Act

In addition to Kari’s law, another recent FCC regulation is impacting multiline telephone systems. This regulation is called Ray Baum’s Act and it too has implications for school district-wide telecommunications. Specifically, Ray Baum’s Act requires all multi-line phone systems to send a dispatchable location along with a “call back” number each time a 911 call is made. This helps to ensure that police and other emergency responders understand where to route resources during an urgent situation and how best to respond.

In school districts that use multi-line phone systems (as most do), Ray Baum’s Act has been and continues to be quite impactful as such pre-existing systems will need to be enhanced to accommodate these requirements.

Learn More On Our On-Demand Campus Safety Webcast Series Complimentary Educational Webinar

So, what do each of these FCC regulations really mean for school communities with multiline phone systems?

How can district and school leaders make changes that align with the recent regulations and continue to ensure the safety and security of their school communities?

If you have questions like these, Eastern DataComm invites you to participate in our online on-demand webinar, a part of the Campus Safety Webcast Series, that is focused on enhancing school safety technology while complying with recent FCC regulations regarding emergency phone communication requirements. Campus Safety shares important educational resources with campus police chiefs, security directors, IT personnel, emergency managers, facilities directors, risk management professionals and executive administrators involved in the public safety and security of hospitals, schools, and universities in the United States.

Additionally, we’ve partnered with Mitel, an industry leader in telecommunications, to offer you a thorough and informative presentation.

During the webinar, we’ll review the recent FCC regulations with vital details regarding how multi-line phone systems (like those typically used within a school district) must function in an emergency and how to safeguard your school community by leveraging technology in emergencies like lockdowns or active shooter events.

Register To View Our Latest Connected And Protected Webinar

To register and participate in this complimentary educational opportunity, visit this link.

If you have more questions particular to your school district’s telephone system needs, write to us at [email protected] to schedule your complimentary Phone System Consultation.

Our team of advisors is here to do a deep-dive with you, examining the current technology you have in place and gaining a full understanding of your considerations – be they budget, timeline, strategy, or otherwise. Based on the unique safety and communication solutions needs of your school district, we’ll share with you best practices and recommendations on how to seamlessly keep your school community connected and protected. We view school safety holistically. As the phone system is a critical component of keeping your faculty, students, and staff safe, we also explore with you emergency notification, video surveillance, and access control technologies that can further augment the work you do to ensure the safety of your school community. Consider us your collaborative resource to aid in the betterment of how you safeguard your campus.

Because when it comes to school safety, we’re all in this together.

How to Keep a School Site Secure

WSI Comandix on September 2, 2021

Providing a safe learning environment through ‘smart’ on-campus security is one of the most important responsibilities for schools across America.

Over the past few years, school security has been prioritized with greater investment of time and resources in safety measures. It’s a school’s direct responsibility to implement solutions that consider the various nuances of a school’s environment. From implementation of best-practice protocols and training, through to preventative technologies and systems to heighten the on-campus security and capabilities in times of an emergency – schools are capitalizing on more sophisticated ways to keep schools’ sites more secure.

Here are some of the most effective strategies and methods that your school can implement to advance its school site security.

Safety Prevention

The physical safety of students is the primary concern for all education providers in America. Therefore, the first and most important step to upholding school security is adopting a School Emergency Operations plan. This allows you to implement a security infrastructure that provides protection, enables students to attend school with peace of mind, and fosters an enhanced learning environment.

All schools must have an emergency plan in place to outline necessary protocols and ensure student safety in an emergency. When reviewing your emergency plan, it’s important to outline all protocols in a systematic and logical manner. Involving a multitude of stakeholders during the planning process is also beneficial to ensure no procedures are overlooked.

Another key prevention method is creating a positive and supportive environment in which students help one another, discourage violence or bullying, in turn helping promote a safer school environment. Combining a strategy that facilitates security protocols and student-based support has proven the most effective way to foster a supportive and safe learning experience.

Safety Monitoring

To help facilitate the long-term well-being of staff and students, it’s necessary to monitor your school regularly. Adopting the most advanced technology into your school security systems allows you to monitor who is entering and leaving the school grounds at any given time. It also enables you to understand the school community and interactions within the space giving credence to addressing issues at their core.

One key technology that schools can incorporate into all security monitoring procedures is video surveillance, providing your school with 24/7 coverage of who is on the premises and their movements. Having the ability to monitor your school site at any given time allows you to reduce external threats and offers greater perspective in an emergency. The addition of cloud-based solutions can enhance security controls and allow a deeper understanding of how your school operates. When an emergency does arise, features such as motion sensors allow you to find footage of specific regions and can receive vital information to act quickly against any threat towards student safety.

Safety Warnings

A coherent school emergency operations plan ensures that both staff and students have a thorough understanding of protocols associated with an emergency event. However, a plan of action is not enough. Efficient communication is a vital factor in your ability to react to an emergency or threat. Alerting emergency systems facilitates the communication of essential information and enables you to inform staff and students of the important updates during an emergency.

The LENS solution can address communication needs and provide reassurance in the event of a lockdown or emergency. LENS is an emergency notification system that fully automates communication processes during an emergency. LENS promptly notifies proper authorities and everyone in the school grounds of the emergency. This integrated technology solution greatly improves your school’s ability to respond to a threat or an emergency; helping to protect staff and students 24/7.

It’s vital to ensure your school site is safe and secure to protect your students and teachers. By implementing the right processes and procedures, your school can facilitate a positive learning space for students. This will ensure that staff and students have the right knowledge and awareness to handle situations as they arise.

For more information regarding emergency notification solutions like LENS and video surveillance, contact Eastern DataComm for a consultation to adopt the most appropriate solutions to protect your school.

School Safety During an Emergency

WSI Comandix on August 10, 2021

When an emergency strikes your school, the situation must be handled quickly and effectively to minimize further risk and incidents. Does your school provide a safe school environment during an emergency? It’s vital that each situation has been carefully planned for and that a comprehensive implementation plan is actioned.

There’re many school emergencies that can occur such as: fires, floods, student injuries, dangerous animals, gas leaks, missing students, hostage, or bomb situations and many other events. When your school can effectively manage an emergency, your school has the opportunity to provide additional support to students and educators, while developing effective coping mechanisms for everyone involved.

Here’s what your school should be doing to keep safe in an emergency.

Regulatory Compliance

Schools must be aware of the latest local regulations and written policies and procedures when it comes to handling emergency situations. If your school wants to effectively manage emergency situations, you can regularly practice, monitor, and review existing policies and procedures with educators, and pass on the necessary information and steps to students. By doing this, your school can ensure both students and educators are clear on the complying with legal and organisational regulations. If you want to be proactive and maximize your school safety, you can display a floor plan of the school with the required steps and procedures near exit doors and in classrooms. This enables students to easily review the required actions for an emergency and become familiar with them.

Delegate Educator Roles and Responsibilities

For a school safety plan to be successful during an emergency, it’s essential for the roles and responsibilities to be delegated to the appropriate educators and employees. These roles should be frequently discussed in meetings and practiced each month for everyone to be aware of what their role entitles and what their responsibilities are in the event of an emergency. The safety of students is the number one priority of schools and it’s important you do everything possible to maintain a safe environment for everyone.

Develop Evacuation Plans

Evacuation plans are used when a school must immediately leave the area as the school facility is no longer safe and there’s risks of danger to the wellbeing of students and educators. Evacuation plans are vital and must be implemented and practiced in all schools. To further protect the safety of your school, you can display the plan on a map in a prominent area throughout the school so it can be reviewed. The one-page map must be simple and have an assemble location and step-by-step overview of the evacuation process.

Here are 7 key steps in an evacuation plan:

Sound the school warning alarm
The nominated employer or supervisor can dial 911
The nominated employee can collect an emergency pack (mobile, first aid, attendance list and records)
All educators must direct students to the nominated assembly locations (often a large open space such as an oval or sports court)
Check student attendance list
Wait for emergency services and agencies to attend
Remain at assembly location until advised by emergency services it’s safe to return to the school facilities.

Plan for School Lockdowns

In some emergencies, your school employees can manage a lockdown without the need for emergency services. More serious situations like threats of violence from intruders will require emergency services. When emergency services are needed, the school must act fast by locking doors, closing windows, and getting students and educators to hide under tables and stay down low out of site from intruders.

Here are 8 key steps in a lockdown plan:

Sound the school warning alarm
The nominated employer or supervisor to dial 911 (if required)
Immediately lock all doors, windows, and access points, while closing blinds (if available)
Ensure everyone is hidden and stays down low out of site from the intruders
Check the attendance list of students
Educators should provide support to students – try to calm them down and remain quiet
Liaise with emergency services and delegate communications across the school
Remain in lockdown until emergency services give all clear

Improve School Safety with an Emergency Pack

If your school is organized and prepared with an emergency pack, you can improve your school safety during an emergency. An emergency pack contains a range of supplies that might be required should an emergency situation occur. Your school can ensure the emergency pack is always prepared by scheduling monthly checks during your audit and practice of emergency plans. What should your emergency pack contain to improve school safety during an emergency?

Portable first aid kit
Portable emergency contact list (laminated to prevent damage)
Tissues
Plastic bags
Fully charged mobile phone
Copy of evacuation and lockdown plan and procedures
Reading books to entertain distressed students
Bottled water and plastic cups

An emergency pack can contain a range of items which can be tailored to the needs of your students and your school.

To improve safety during an emergency, your school must constantly review existing plans and procedures, undertake audits and find new ways to advance your plans and procedures, educate both employees and students and regularly practice the required steps and procedures with employees and students. By considering these factors and implementing new precautions to ensure your plans are up-to-date and effective, your school can provide a safer school environment during an emergency. By having a clear plan for the management of emergency situations, your school can quickly reduce the risks of harm and closely monitor students who are unable to concentrate or cope during an emergency.

What Teachers need to do in an emergency lockdown

WSI Comandix on July 30, 2021

Your worst nightmare is here. You’ve heard an alarm, there is an intruder in your school. Do you know what to do in a school emergency lockdown?

An emergency lockdown is used when a threat or incident occurs on the school premises. When a lockdown takes place, teachers must act quickly, and undertake tried and tested procedures and precautions to ensure a safe school environment for students.

5 Ways to Improve Schools Safety

WSI Comandix on July 19, 2021

School safety is an ongoing and complicated issue for many schools in the US, whether you’re an educator, administrator, student or visitor, a school environment must always be safe, and schools must do everything in their power to prevent intruders and other potential dangers. It’s a school’s responsibility to build a positive and safe climate that supports learning and protects students and employees from danger whilst on the premises. It’s a reasonable requirement for students and educators to feel comfortable and safe when in a classroom. Here are 5 strategies to help your school provide a safer environment.

1.Practice Emergency Plans

Schools should make safety a priority and conduct monthly safety drills to assess protocols, educate students and ensure facilities are secure. By regularly practicing emergency drills including lockdowns, evacuations and emergency communication protocols, students can become familiar with the drills and act quickly during a dangerous encounter. When practice drills experience issues, it offers schools the opportunity to develop and update emergency plans and procedures to deliver a safer environment for both students and educators.

2.Monitor School Visitors

Visitors entering the school must report to the main office, sign in and wear a visitors’ badge. Schools can then inform administrators and educators to report strangers and intruders when they’re not wearing a name badge. By monitoring school visitors, it allows your school to be proactive in its approach to increase safety.

3.Create A Supportive Environment

Creating a safe and supportive school environment delivers school-wide behavioral expectations and enhances a nurturing school climate. One of the most effective methods to deter drugs, bullying and violence is to create a supportive environment where students will feel less inclined to engage in problematic behaviors. Students who genuinely care and respect each other are more likely to contribute towards a safer school environment. When faculty create an environment that incentivizes students to support each other, it creates an ecosystem that prevents violent acts from occurring at school, creating a positive social culture and increase academic results.

4.Involve School Counsellors

To improve the safety of your school, you can equip counsellors with programs that aim to reduce aggression and dysfunctional behavior. When students are provided with the right information and activities to learn self-control, emotional awareness, social skills and problem-solve without verbal or non-verbal abuse, it can immediately create a safer school environment. Counsellors are an important service that schools should utilize to help students and provide the right resources and materials to overcome behavior issues.

5.Leverage Partnerships

Schools can use information from students, educators, employees, parents, and caregivers to analyze their opinions of school culture and climate. This information can be used to work towards a safer school and develop improvement plans. Schools can further leverage partnerships with the community to enhance safety measures for students beyond the school property, including Neighborhood Watch programs and the Police. Taking these extra measures can help your school create a supportive environment where students feel safe and connected.

Administrators can simply reinforce school safety practices and procedures, however, to improve school safety, students and educators must work together to develop a strong supportive environment and correctly implement emergency safety plans. It’s not easy to encourage students to follow through with visiting a counsellor or immediately conjuring a supporting climate, it takes time and ongoing effort. Schools can work towards these outcomes and improve safety by reinforcing existing safety measures while implementing new safety measures, monitoring school visitors, and leveraging new community partnerships.