Three Point Plan for Increased School Security

Across the nation, school districts are focusing on the safety and security of their campuses and addressing any concerns. They understand the importance of ensuring the safety of their students and faculty, yet, sometimes the implementation process can seem a bit overwhelming. That is why we have developed our “Three Point Plan” for a safer school district. 

Step 1: Visually Identify People

By implementing a visual identification policy district wide, schools can foster an environment that encourages faculty and staff to question unknown people on their campus. Many schools that we work with are requiring the visual display of identification for all faculty, staff, students and even visitors. This makes it easier to recognize unauthorized visitors in the building. To ensure consistency, make sure faculty and staff can get their photo IDs issued quickly and visitors can check in efficiently. By avoiding complicated software and a long turnaround time for badge issuance, you will greatly improve the success of whatever system you choose.

 

Step 2: Control Entry Points

To aid in identification and security efforts, schools should manage the flow of visitor and faculty traffic through pre-defined entry points. More schools are implementing electronic card access systems to monitor door status and enable easy lockdown campus-wide, if necessary. To better manage traffic flow, schools should design the system to notify them when doors are propped open and make sure that the system is programed to deactivate credentials automatically when a person(s) leaves the district and no longer needs access rights or privileges.  This will help prevent unauthorized users from having access to your campus.

Step 3: Know What Happened

 
Anytime an event occurs in a school district, the school should be able to access real-time information within seconds. Campuses nationwide rely on video surveillance and quality reporting for accurate recall of various occurrences. In order to receive the most accurate and reliable data possible, schools should ensure their system offers fast and easy access to video footage or reporting information and avoid inaccurate data and unknown camera outages.

 Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Door Access, Photo ID, and Visitor Tracking software. Visit www.badgepass.com for more information.

Credential Overflow

Thousands of organizations struggle with a common door access security issue known as Credential Overflow. 

Credential Overflow occurs when the number of active credentials in the system outnumber, sometimes drastically, the number of active cardholders.  If a company's door access system is not equipped to handle the causes of this issue, they may face some serious security risks as a result. 

What causes Credential Overflow?  There are two primary causes: 

1. Lack of Database Communication

Often times, a company's active user database, such as their employee or HR database does not communicate with their access control system seamlessly.  If those two databases do not share information, then the process for activating and deactivating users and credentials usually involves two steps. 

Step One:  Enroll/Remove them from HR
Step Two: Enroll/Remove them from Access Control System

This is not very effective, as any time the second step is missed, cards remain active in the system long after the user has left. 

2. Badge Re-Issuance

Many times cardholders lose badges and ask for reprints, forgetting to have their old cards deactivated at that time.  If the system doesn't support automatic deactivation of old credentials as soon as a new one is printed, the old badge can stay active in the system forever, creating an imbalance in the number of active cards and cardholders. 

How do we fix it?

1. If the access control database can "sync" up with the customer's existing cardholder database, like Active Directory or HR, then this allows for more of a single-step activation and deactivation process.  Once a person has been enrolled or removed from the HR database, they will no longer have active access priviliges in the access control system either.  This is far easier for all parties involved - and much more secure. 

2. Look for door access systems that automatically deactivate old badges as soon as a new badge is printed.  This will help to eliminate the issue with users having numerous credentials associated with their record in the system. 


Lindsay Cornell is the Director of Sales for BadgePass, Inc. BadgePass manufactures cutting edge Door Access, Photo ID, and Visitor Tracking software. Visit www.badgepass.com for more information.