Managing the digital and physical security of a school district’s learning environment is an important part of all educational systems. School authorities nationwide are continuously engaged in numerous actions to successfully manage school functions and provide better educational experiences to students.

Conversely, it is important for stakeholders to rapidly evolve their digital and physical security strategies by enhancing the maturity, innovation, and reliability of their management systems.

In order to maximize the functions of management systems and assure parents of their child’s safety and progress, leading school districts are using school management systems that boast a variety of features that improve the overall administration of schools.

The Age of Digital Transformation: Data and School Security

Digital transformation is described as “a foundation change in how an organization delivers value to its stakeholders.”

The evolution and integration of digital technology in school management systems transcend beyond basic innovations by providing administrations with measurable, all-in-one digital/physical solutions to traditional problems.

Stronger opportunities to transform and monitor existing student information systems (SIS), behavior management analysis, meet privacy regulations, and safeguard stakeholder data are now manageable through student data & management software.

Notably, there are critical conditions related to the absence of an optimized student management system that is imperative to understand when selecting the best solution for your school district.

Securing Your Digital Tech Environment

All education systems store and supply information on both the staff that work in the school district and the students within the learning environment. By law, data ranging from medical history, home addresses, phone numbers, and bank details are stakeholder resources that must be protected for the safety of everyone.

If a virus penetrates that system, then this information is at risk and could be encrypted, stolen, and used by criminals.

According to the K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center, the number of cybersecurity-related incidents involving U.S. public schools has risen to nearly 400 attacks since 2016.

As a result, the U.S. Department of Education strongly encourages stakeholder organizations to employ a “Defense in Depth” architecture that uses a wide spectrum of tools arrayed in a complementary fashion. The most common layers to protect are hosts (individual computers), application, network, and perimeter.

Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education reports, “There are specific security controls that are suited for use at each of these layers. Relying on a firewall alone to protect your network is never adequate.”

Fortunately, there are successful risk management steps that can be taken to protect your school’s tech ecosystem. It is important that each school district:

• Procures a vendor that specializes in integrated security for education stakeholders;
• Implements mandatory training and best practices for student privacy and data security.

Educate Stakeholders: Student Data Privacy

The Department for Education requires students to be taught about online safety as part of safeguarding activities, which emphasizes the importance to invest in cybersecurity and online safety education by both making the students aware of online threats and teaching staff members the right preventive measures.

Having a multi-layered approach to the school’s cybersecurity will drastically reduce the risk of infection to your systems while implementing a strategy to prevent and manage digital and physical school security threats.

Securing Your Physical Tech Environment

Visitor Management System: Monitor Your Physical Environment

Make computing resources physically unavailable to unauthorized users. This includes securing access to any areas where sensitive data (i.e., data that carry the risk for harm from an unauthorized or inadvertent disclosure) are stored and processed, such as buildings and server rooms.

Identify in Real-Time: Visitor Badges
An unlocked server room is an invitation for malicious or accidental damage. The most effective way to monitor access to these areas and prevent intrusion attempts includes administering identification badges.

Requiring staff and visitors to log in prior to entering the premises or accessing any resources.

ScholarChip’s Visitor Management helps schools keep at-risk visitors from accessing the premises while providing real-time notification of each visitor’s location. The visitor management system seamlessly integrates with the school’s SIS, ensuring visitors are connected to student data, which makes managing and processing visitors easy and efficient.

Secure Door Access System: Protecting Physical Access to Data

Access to buildings and secure areas is critical to campus safety, as well as your tech environment where stakeholder resources may be stored. ScholarChip’s secure door access system provides knowledge to IT staff and security teams towards which staff members and students pass through doors.

Allowing specific members entrance at particular times of day, with instant lock-down and one-click efficiencies further prevent and manages school security threats within your physical environment.

Prevent and Monitor School Security Threats

Secure Campus Safety through Optimized Student Management Software

Platform Integration
All-in-one student data & management system platforms are proven to be the most beneficial solutions and technological advancement for overall school security.

In maximizing campus safety and your tech environment, student management system optimization requires:

• Integration of databases.
• Visitor screening system
• Secure access solely for the intended individuals (i.e. education professionals, students, etc.).
• Third-party data centralization.

Accurate and Quick Data Capture

Student Location Tracking

Smart ID Card attendance provides advantages through card reader technology, enabling:

• Effortless review by Administrators.
• Student population insights and reporting.

The multi-layered approach provides student management system optimization, which includes student and staff Smart ID Cards, large group and classroom attendance, cafeteria POS, secure door access, and mobile monitoring.

Behavior Reporting and Management

Monitor and manage behavior for which students are held accountable, specifically their attendance and general behavior at school, as well as generating student data-driven reports to identify at-risk learners.

Additionally, an optimized student management system:

• Reinforces better behavior and monitors progress
• Supports decision-making tasks for teachers and administrators
• Integrates an intervention and student reward system.

An advantage to ScholarChip’s ABE (Alternative Behavior Educator) is demonstrated through the incorporation of the complete behavior spectrum and integrates student interventions, rewards, and tracking with popular SIS programs.

As the digital transformation of school security and data management occur, it is clear that student management strategies must evolve with new education processes and policies implemented by the school district’s administration and government regulations. Platform integration provides these digital and physical solutions to aid in the management of school security threats.

ScholarChip is an all-in-one, platform solution to help reduce school threats and address the important issues surrounding school security. Data from students, faculty, and stakeholder are leveraged to manage school access, attendance, and behavior management through the platform tools to increase safety and promote the campus climate schools are looking for.

If you are looking to capitalize on ScholarChip’s latest technology, request a live 1-on-1 walkthrough on how their technology can benefit your campus and improve safety.