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Getting Back to School Safely

By Will Zurcher, Installation Manager at Kenton Brothers

ClassroomSecuring the front entrance of any facility can be challenging. Securing a school’s front entrance is possibly the most challenging project a company like ours can be asked to provide.

Schools present unique obstacles.

  • Parents don’t want to drop their children off in the morning to a building that resembles a prison. It makes sense to make sure people on the inside are safe from external threats. But we have to remember that a facility that is harder to get into is also harder to get out of.
  • In the design phase, we have to always keep in mind that the majority of the users are going to be children and visitors. And they aren’t necessarily familiar with the facility, so the systems put in place have to be easy for them to use.
  • There are situations when the systems we put in place will need to be bypassed to accommodate large groups of people to pass freely in and out of the building.

Realistically, with the budgets that schools are faced with, creating a 100% secure front entrance is often not possible.

When starting the design process, we must first work on funneling all of the traffic to the front entrance in order to control access to the building. This can be done with fencing to deter trespassing and limit access to secondary entrances. Cameras monitor perimeter entry points and notify staff of any unknown traffic around the facility. The cameras can double as monitoring tools for recesses and transition periods. Door “position” switches can also be installed to notify staff of any unlocked entry points.

With these options in place, any unauthorized people would need to proceed to the office in order to gain entry into the building.

Recently, front entrances have been designed or remodeled to have a double door style entrance which allows visitors free entrance into a secured vestibule area. This allows front office staff to clearly identify visitors.

In the vestibule area, there’s a second set of access controlled doors that lead into the school. There’s also a single access control door that leads into the office. These doors will be outfitted with locking mechanisms that are “fail secure”. This means that if the school loses power, the doors will remain locked.

Outside the office entry door there is an intercom system for the visitor to communicate with the office staff. If no threat is detected, the staff has a button to release the door lock, allowing the visitor entry into the office to sign in. This process allows the office staff to keep track of everyone in the building. It also allows the office staff to notify the authorities of any threats with a duress / panic button while securely delaying the threat long enough for the authorities to get there.

Kenton Brothers understands all of these situations. We help schools implement easy-to-use and reliable solutions while working with the staff to put procedures in place for emergency situations. Give us a call to learn more.

7 Technologies that promote School Safety

7_Technologies_openSchool safety is a huge topic that encompasses a lot of different types of technology. There’s video surveillance, access control, visitor management, fire systems, alarms, mass notification, etc. The list goes on and on.

While the needs of school districts vary as much as the size of their budgets, there are some major categories of technology that can promote school safety and make a difference in any K-12 district regardless of its location or size.

  1. Desktop Alerts–Desktop alerts allow for warnings to pop up on the screen of every campus computer on your network.  While many K-12 districts are moving towards mobile devices like laptops and tablets, this type of desktop messaging tool is still very beneficial.
  2. ID Card Access–While many schools have this sort of access control at the main entrance, few have key card access available at side entrances or anywhere in the building.
  3. Panic Buttons–If trouble arises, they push the button and an alert is sent to the the authorities and to school administrators to make everyone aware of a threat in the building.
  4. Social Media Scanning Software–This type of software is used to prevent cyber bullying or school violence by detecting it before it happens. The goal is to allow the school to intervene before anything serious occurs. Tools like this have been used to successfully prevent teen suicide and school violence.
  5. Mass Messaging Software–Tools like e2campus, pictured here, allow schools to send messages to parents, faculty, staff and students when there is a threat. These messages can be in the form of email, voice or text.
  6. Video Surveillance–A video surveillance system may help to deter people from criminal acts.
  7. Visitor Management–A visitor management system quickly scans the ID of any school visitor to check for red flags in their background.

These technologies help schools detect and deter threats and maintain essential lines of communication in the event of an emergency.   Are you using any of these technologies? Would you add anything to this list?

Originally posted in Campus Safety Magazine on February 19, 2015.

Oklahoma PTA LOVE’S the Hide-Away Shelter!!

At a PTA meeting in Oklahoma–home of one of the worst tornado disaster’s in recent history–the Hide-Away Shelter gets high praise!

Deployable in seconds when a weather emergency or active shooter is present, the Hide-Away Shelter provides near instant F5 tornado and bullet proof protection for an entire class.  No longer does the teacher need to lead the class through hallways that have turned into wind tunnels sucking out anything and everything that isn’t firmly attached.  No more locking the door and praying an active shooter won’t shoot his way in.

When a Hide-Away Shelter is installed in every classroom, safety lives within!

School demolished on top of shelter…..

And the shelter survived!

As the rubble is pulled away–the storm proof, bullet proof Hide-Away Shelter is un-crushed, un-opened, and un-harmed……proving the shelter’s worth goes beyond price.  What is a fair price for saving a life?  For saving an entire class?  How about saving every child in your elementary school?

In this season of severe weather, don’t wait until after disaster happens.  Act now.  Save a life!

KB give’s you shelter in the storm….

Yesterday’s severe weather in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Iowa brought back painful memories of past storms and the devastation they can cause: Moore, OK; Joplin, MO; Tuscaloosa, GA…….

Storm season is just beginning in the Midwest with the worst yet to come At Least 18 Killed by Tornadoes.

Kenton Brothers will be doing a series of blogs on a new storm shelter being fabricated right here in the Kansas City area. It is a deployable, FEMA rated F-5 tornado storm shelter constructed of military grade ballistic metal capable of withstanding full metal jacket rounds. The Hide-Away Storm Shelter isn’t just any ordinary shelter. It has been put to the test–and it has PASSED!

Look for these upcoming posts on the Hide-Away Shelter:

Oklahoma school demolished on top of Hide-Away Shelter…..

Moore, OK: Why the school board isn’t ready to pull the trigger, even though parents are demanding installation of the Hide-Away Shelter in every one of Moore’s schools…..