Safe Havens International analysts have assisted with five statewide school security assessment projects over the years.  Safe Havens was selected last week to assist with a sixth statewide project in New England.  We are in the process of finalizing the contract and will make a more detailed announcement as soon as this process is completed.  State level school security projects are always a challenging but wonderful experience.  These school security projects are also some of the most productive in terms of cost/benefit ratio for statewide approaches to school security.

Our non-profit school safety center has been fortunate enough to interact with a number of other school safety centers over time.  Though a number of state government school safety centers have been defunded and closed over the years, others are still providing an array of valuable services to schools and their community partners.  We recently learned that the State of Minnesota has decided to fund their state school safety center once again after funding had been cut for a lengthy period of time.  We are glad to see this step to enhance the level of school safety in Minnesota.  There are significant benefits to a properly run state school safety center as well as those of well-run non-profit centers like ours and the highly regarded National School Safety Center. 

The school safety center approach has had a positive impact on school safety in a number of states and at the national level, and we applaud the efforts at our colleagues at school safety centers across the nation. 

Our analysts have been pleased to note that far more K12 schools are installing duress buttons than in the past.  Commonly called “panic” buttons, duress buttons allow school staff to communicate an emergency to a call monitoring center or in some cases directly to school security, school police or even 911 centers in rare cases.  During the more than forty school security assessment projects our analysts have conducted this year, we have found that the majority of our public and non-public school clients either have recently installed or were receptive to our recommendations that they should install panic buttons.  This is a stark contrast to what we have found assessing thousands of K12 schools over the years.  We feel this indicates significant progress in school security.

Our analysts are however, finding a very common gap when panic buttons have been installed in schools.  During controlled one-on-one crisis simulations, we have regularly found that the reasons school employees activate the panic buttons does not match the expectations of law enforcement officers.  For example, when responding to a video scenario of an agitated visitor brandishing a claw hammer or a large knife, many staff correctly state they would press the button (though a surprising number say they would not because the aggressor does not have a gun).  However, when we query local law enforcement officers who would respond to the panic button activation, they routinely tell us the buzzers are installed for active shooter situations and that they would respond accordingly.  In addition, a surprising number of school office employees responding to a scenario involving a fire state they would activate the panic button not realizing that only law enforcement officers would be dispatched. Relating to this, we have found that the majority of test subjects do not realize they should also call 911 to provide more detail if the situation allows them to do so.

There are a number of very robust panic button systems which are tied to security cameras and audio allowing dispatch, security and/or 911 center personnel to see and/or hear what is going on in an area where the panic button is activated.  However, the majority of systems installed by schools lack these features.

We recommend that schools that install panic buttons provide employees with written guidance on their use and some form of staff development to better prepare them for situations where they might be used in an emergency.  Of course, these efforts should be properly documented and all panic buttons should be tested on a regular basis.