Any time administrators feel as if there may be a breach of security, whatever that may be, or any time there is an outside threat, with respect to schools, for most institutions, the standard immediate protocol is to secure the entire building, pulling out all the stops to make sure the children are inside and that intruders are kept outside. This is commonly referred to as a “lockdown”.

As simple as this sounds, this is not as easy as it seems. Most of the faculty is in charge of a group of at least 20-25 students and cannot simply leave the students unattended to begin closing doors. This leaves the “lockdown” process in the hands of only a few individuals who are not directly in charge of a group of students.

Most campuses have multiple buildings and multiple community spaces, such as gyms, cafeterias, etc. Having staff hop from building to building, physically locking all of the doors increases the risk for not only the faculty but the students, as well. 

Schools need to leverage an access control system that has the ability to link and lock all of the doors with a cloud-based platform. With the push of a button, all of the doors are locked and secured while monitoring and logging who is actively trying to gain access to the school.

This gives administration valuable time to prepare, time that could not be granted if they were running frantically in an attempt to physically lock every door, in the event of an emergency.