An ideal school community enables instructors to focus on educating young minds while learners concentrate on academics and positive socialization. However, our nation’s school communities are not perfect, requiring a solid school safety plan that leaves no room for errors and oversights.
Each school year, school superintendents are mandated with the responsibility to analyze and implement a school safety plan that meets state and federal guidelines while ensuring their strategy is very efficient in protecting all students, staff, and data.
The major aspects of each school safety plan must target:
- School access control system
- ID management solutions
- Visitor management for district-wide security
- Promote accountability of students and staff
Integrate Your Complex Safety Plan into an All-in-One Solution
Through the use of smart card reader technology, school officials can dually modernize their approach to helping progress classroom efficiencies and leverage authority in knowing more about their school population. To fully understand the benefits of smart card readers, we must first recognize how complicated and inefficient most schools safety plans have become.
School security systems have several unique challenges:
Building Access Rights: With a variety of different levels of personnel within your school grounds, including administrators, teachers, janitors and substitute teachers, there will be a number of different access rights that need to be accounted for.
Visitor Management: Schools frequently welcome new visitors of all kinds, each of whom presents various factors that need to be accounted for before they are able to enter the grounds.
Population and Attendance Control: School facilities can have trouble managing large attendance with centralized information.
Technology Advancements: Modern security threats, including gun violence and data breaches mean that school security officials must continuously evolve with the times.
Smart Card Reader Technology Reduces Safety Risks and Increases Staff Efficiencies
More than four million children endured lockdowns last school year, a recent groundbreaking Washington Post analysis unveiled, leaving students traumatized and often insecure about safety plans that provide them with little accountability.
Smart card readers harden your school district’s access control system strategy by providing all-in-one:
- Lockdown building solutions
- Accurate reports of attendance and door access
- Management of multiple school buildings
- ID management for students, staff, and recurring visitors
ID Management and Accountability
Smart ID technology promotes contactless features, enterprise data management optimization, and the fortified ability to take authority of student attendance.
Attendance with Smart ID Cards provide advantages, enabling:
- Effortless review capabilities by school administrators
- Accurate student population insights and reporting
Large Population Management: Smart card readers are now developed to handle districts with large populations and accurately manage building attendance.
Increases Attendance Rates: Real-time attendance reporting will also bring a positive impact that leads to higher attendance rates and the reduction in truancy and various menacing actions that could in the coming school year. Chronic absenteeism is another large factor to consider tackling that directly can affect a school’s safety. With the technology behind smart ID card readers, the same technology will help track and analyze an at-risk student based from their attendance rates.
Enhances Your District’s Reputation and Security
Being known as a secure place of learning within an imperfect society is critical in continuing the goal for school safety and a positive school climate. Increased attendance rates lead to increased enrollment within your schools and a sense of district-wide professionalism that stems from an organized, modernized school safety plan.
“Although the overall driving factor is ultimately safety and security, we had to find a program that had the integration for the accountability components,” explains Thomas Moffses, Superintendent of Hamilton County Schools.
Superintendent Moffses further illustrates to WCTV News how an all-in-one, smart card reader solution cut costs and provided a positive image within his district’s community. “They’re not used to seeing a small and rural county step up and go after student’s safety and security,” adds Moffses.
Alongside other schools recognized for using smart card reader technology in their school safety plans, your school district can also reap the benefits that result from a modernized strategy.
Finding Grants for School Security
Increased Attendance Rates = Higher Funding Possibilities
One of the biggest obstacles in a school safety plan includes budgets and funding. Fortunately, both state and federal funds are set aside annually, specifically for boosting security in schools, giving particular interest to schools that contain smart card reader technology within their safety plans. Smart card readers help support your grant applications while positioning your district for maximum success.
Eligibility for the STOP School Violence Act of 2018 contains new programs that provide funding for school safety measures including:
- Coordination with law enforcement
- Training to recognize and prevent events of student violence
- Installation of deterrent measures
- Purchase of technology for expedited notification of law enforcement during an emergency
- Other measures determined to provide a significant improvement in security
There are many solutions that may aid your pursuit of necessary funding from both government and private organizations. However, smart technology remains the most proactive method for securing your schools’ security grants.
Selecting a modern all-in-one access control system for your school district is one of the smartest decisions and investments your educational institution can make. Smart card readers provide an exclusive, comprehensive solution that can be measured and scaled specifically for all of the inimitable challenges your district will face in the coming school year.
ScholarChip is an all-in-one platform solution to comprehensively help reduce school threats and address the important issues surrounding school safety risks. Data from students, faculty, and stakeholders are leveraged to manage school access, attendance, and behavior management through the platform tools to increase safety and campus climate for schools.
To learn more about improving your school safety plan for years to come, schedule a 1-on-1 walkthrough session with one of our specialists today!
