Managing the spectrum of safety and security improvements and processes that keep K-12 schools safe can be a daunting task. Administrators and school safety leaders juggle technology needs, training and compliance requirements, and physical campus security needs, often with limited funding and small or overworked teams.
Open discussions that address immediate needs while acknowledging resource limitations can help districts focus on a proactive, effective school safety approach.
Table of Contents
1. How Can Schools Know Who Is on Campus and If They’re Authorized to Be There?
Campus security is often thought of as perimeter security, like door locks and security cameras, but it also extends to visitor and volunteer practices that screen and authorize individuals on school grounds. Most unauthorized people actually enter through the front door. Schools should have consistent, effective systems and procedures in place to help front desk staff properly screen and identify any person entering the school.
Visitor and volunteer management software, like Raptor VisitorSafe and VolunteerSafe, can help schools
- screen visitors and volunteers against national and state sex offender registries
- keep track of custody disputes or other concerns with custom watch lists
- maintain defensible records of every adult authorized to be on campus
- visually identify visitors and volunteers to staff throughout the building
2. What’s the Best Way for Schools to Manage Required Safety Drills?
Schools conduct numerous drills each year, ranging from lockdowns to severe weather, but it can become complicated to plan, track, and evaluate their success. But regardless of mandate specifics, the best way for any district to organize, plan, and practice safety drills is through an integrated drill management system.
Staff have to manage all the moving parts across the pre-drill, drill event, and post-drill. Drill management software, like Raptor Drill Manager, helps administrators
- plan and schedule upcoming drills
- add unannounced drills at required cadence
- keep drill event notes and data all in one place
- follow-up on drills with after-action reviews and action plans
- track drill compliance by school or building
- identify trends or safety gaps before a real incident
- build accurate, defensible reports for audits
Successful school safety drill tools should integrate directly with your school’s emergency management platform, preparing teams to act swiftly in emergencies, and logging valuable data for process improvements.
3. Can a Safety Drill Be Run Without Traumatizing Students and Staff?
Yes. Historically, school safety drills emphasized realism, encouraging schools to try to emulate real emergency conditions, but this is no longer recommended. Hyper-realistic drills can do more damage than good by frightening staff and students and impeding their ability to effectively and safely respond in an emergency.
While certain types of drills (e.g., lockdown, fire, earthquake) must be unannounced by state laws, in general safety drills should not be high stress or come as a surprise to staff so they can confidently guide students and manage their emotions. To run successful, trauma-informed safety drills schools should
- train staff on any protocols or processes used in a drill before the drill event
- avoid hyper-realistic elements like gunshot noises or power outages
- clarify unannounced drill events are drills immediately after initiation
- communicate with parents before and after drills
- plan a learning objective for the drill so the benchmark for success is clear
4. Which States Require Silent Panic Alerts in Schools?
Currently, twelve U.S. states have passed Alyssa’s Law, including
- Florida
- Georgia
- New Jersey
- New York
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
The specific requirements of Alyssa’s Law vary from state to state but the primary requirement remains the same: that schools implement a silent panic alert system that integrates with Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) for direct 911 connectivity—activated with a simple button press.
5. What Is the Best Panic Alert System for Schools?
The best panic alert system for schools is a wearable, silent panic alert that exceeds legislative requirements and follows best practices for emergency alerting, including
- silent activation for discrete alerting
- wearable design for staff to use anywhere on campus
- direct 911 connectivity with no third-party routing
- precise location accuracy with mapping on-device battery status monitoring and alerting
- silent, built-in communication and status update capabilities
- integration with other multi-sensory alerting and emergency management systems
Raptor Badge Alert provides these features and more, helping schools exceed state-level panic alerting requirements and keeping staff connected and informed during a crisis.
6. How Often Should Panic Buttons, Badges, or Other Alerting Hardware Be Tested?
Some states pass Alyssa’s Law with a requirement of annual or semi-annual testing of panic alert devices and/or the emergency systems used to contact 911, but other states do not have specific guidelines. If a school is not bound by state law, then they can determine their own testing cadence in their district safety planning protocol and device needs.
For example, a battery-powered device like a wearable panic alert, might need to be tested less frequently than the gateway keeping the systems up and running. Using a panic alert system that provides real-time battery and gateway monitoring gives administrative and IT teams quick and easy insights about the health of their critical emergency systems.
7. How Can First Responders Immediately Know Where to Go in a School Emergency?
A robust alerting system will send critical location data to 911 at the time of the alert, but first responders also need more detailed location information from current campus maps to avoid confusion when they arrive. This gives first responders the detailed, real-time information they need to act quickly and with confidence, reducing the delay between an alert and a coordinated response.
8. What Are Some Best Practices for Student Reunification After a Lockdown or Evacuation?
The main goal of a successful reunification should be to reunify guardians and students with as little confusion and trauma as possible, using standardized protocols and real-time accountability software. Many schools achieve that by following the Standard Reunification Method (SRM) developed by The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, which is the framework used by Raptor Technologies. This process includes
- establishing separate areas for parent/guardian check-in, student holding, and reunification
- conducting accountability for who is on-site, both students and staff
- using reunification cards to organize and streamline parent/guardian check-in
- verifying parent/guardian identity before reunification
- managing the student and parent experience to reduce additional trauma
While schools can use the SRM as a completely manual system, it’s a best practice to integrate it with existing emergency management systems for an even more streamlined reunification process. Connecting reunification tasks to valuable data, like your school’s Student Information System (SIS) or accountability workflows with student whereabouts and status, makes reunification faster and more efficient, reducing the time parents and students are separated from each other after a traumatic event.
To prepare staff for running the SRM, schools should participate in reunification training. Raptor offers the Together Reunification Exercise (T-REx) in partnership with The “I Love U Guys” Foundation to help schools understand the SRM and how it works in Raptor’s Emergency Management Software.
9. What Are Some Key Violence Prevention Steps Schools Can Take?
Violence prevention on school campuses requires a commitment to both emergency preparation and student wellbeing. Preventative measures often start with fostering feelings of inclusion, belonging, and safety in the student population. For example, on-campus leadership roles have been proven to be protective against early gang recruitment for elementary students, while mentorship and relationship-building can help prevent gang violence in later grades.
Schools can also prevent violence through campus security measures, like weapon detection systems, perimeter security, consistent visitor screening and identification, and a robust panic alerting system to give any staff member the ability to call for help quickly and discretely.
10. How Can Schools Effectively Manage Student Wellbeing Concerns?
Student wellbeing management, including bullying prevention, suicide prevention, and behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM), are foundational aspects of school violence prevention.
To more effectively address student wellbeing concerns, schools should
- follow consistent, evidence-based methodologies for capturing and addressing student concerns, like the Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines (CSTAG) for BTAM and Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) for suicide risk assessment
- provide access to student mental health support for all students on campus, partnering with school mental health professionals and counselors as well as community resources
- use a student wellbeing management tool that integrates with approved methodologies and keeps assessments, workflows, follow-up tasks, and student chronologies all in one secure place
11. What Questions Should Staff Ask School Safety Software Vendors?
The questions you ask a potential safety software partner naturally go beyond just “How much does this cost?” While the exact questions may vary depending on the specific product, during a discovery call with a new vendor, school leaders should consider asking the following questions:
- Can I pay for this product with state funding? Federal funding?
- Do your products integrate with each other for easier IT management and data visibility?
- Will your products connect to other products we already use?
- Can you integrate with my student information system (SIS)?
- How do you handle student data privacy?
- How much hands-on training and on-site implementation support do you offer?
- Who is already using this product successfully?
Liz Margolis, Executive Director of School Safety & District Operations at Ann Arbor Public School District in Michigan, explains, “Having all our safety tools in one integrated platform on Raptor is huge. We spent a long time looking at a competitor that’s an approved CSTAG online provider, but the platforms aren’t integrated. This made their whole backend implementation a very confusing process.”
Especially for districts with multiple campuses and thousands of students, choosing an integrated system is critical to reduce communication gaps, safety risks, and administrative burden.
Asking the Right Questions About School Safety Matters
Building a comprehensive school safety strategy requires a clear understanding of what your district’s priorities and immediate needs are. Use these questions to help guide where your schools may need additional support and identify those priorities.
If you’re looking for a consolidated school safety platform that can grow with your needs, explore Raptor’s integrated school safety platform and see how it aligns with your district’s safety plans.
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