Top Overall Concerns for Schools and Colleges: Strategies and tools for keeping students safe
Jul 1, 2008 12:00 PM
Random Acts of Violence at the nation's schools and universities may grab the headlines, but the top security concerns among education professionals are often centered on more mundane (and manageable) threats such as vandalism or students fighting.
When school violence hits the news, it can tend to raise security awareness among schools and colleges, and in some cases such an event can drive education institutions to re-evaluate and review their security efforts. But more likely, a school's security plan has already been updated in the last year either because of a scheduled or routine review or because of industry standards or benchmarking.
Concerns from parents, teachers and students can also drive security planning efforts, as can requests from the school board or another school official.
Security continues to be top-of-mind, and education professionals have noticed that security incidents are more frequent, some say more severe. Education institutions are spending more money than ever on security concerns, and the increases will continue, with part of that money being spent on a laundry list of technologies to keep schools safe.
These are among the insights to be gleaned from the Exclusive 2008 School Security Survey conducted by American School & University magazine and Access Control & Security Systems magazine. The e-mail survey of school and security professionals sought to quantify important trends in the school security arena, and the results illuminate changes in how professionals can protect educational facilities …. and at what cost.
Check out our survey results on this and the following page. A total of 151 subscribers to the two magazines from K-12 schools and 97 subscribers from colleges/universities responded to our survey.
| SCHOOLS (K-12) | COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Budget issues | 83% | Budget issues | 79% |
| Test results | 83% | Finding good students | 77% |
| Technology incorporation | 76% | Technology incorporation | 64% |
| Finding/retaining teachers | 70% | Finding/retaining professors | 62% |
| Security | 65% | Security | 62% |
| School infrastructure | 63% | School infrastructure | 48% |
| School overcrowding | 31% | Test results | 39% |
| School overcrowding | 18% | ||
Although important, security ranks below other concerns at both K-12 schools and colleges/universities.
