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By Chris Hardman, Customer Success
School safety and security is a team effort, and school board members share in the commitment to the safety and security of students, staff, and visitors in their buildings. But with competing priorities placing additional demands on their time and budget, safety and security partnership proposals need to be specific to your district’s unique needs.
To help select the school safety solution that best meets those needs—and better position your proposal for approval—prepare the following three areas for your board’s consideration:
1. Identify the Safety Needs of Your District
Prior to the purchase of any school safety solution, the district’s needs must be identified before a corresponding solution can be properly vetted. For an end-to-end safety solution that contributes to creating a safe learning environment, considerations should include:
- Personnel resources,
- Current policy,
- Available grant funding, and
- The needs of the students, staff, and visitors.
Parents count on school administration to create a safe learning environment for their children—an environment that includes the ability to screen visitors and stop harmful intruders, respond to and recover from emergencies and provide for the presence of School Resource Officers (SROs).
How Raptor can help
Raptor implementations begin with an Implementation Planning Meeting. Our teams will discuss district priorities, roles and responsibilities, and timeline goals. This consultation forms the basis for configuring your Raptor system to meet your specific needs.
2. Dispel Myths about School Safety Technology
Advances in school-safety technology have evolved to provide more user-friendly, streamlined, solutions that integrate with each other to leverage shared data. Following, we dispel a few of the myths surrounding the purchase of a comprehensive school safety solution.
Technology is intimidating, so usage may be low amongst staff.
One of the foremost concerns with purchasing a new school-safety solution is the anticipation that there will not be full staff adoption or that the technology will be too intimidating for some staff members to utilize.
Prior policy adoption can often mitigate the issue of staff buy-in. With a comprehensive, codified policy in place, a solution can be more easily identified and the chances for full staff adoption increase. All staff members are concerned with the safety of their students. A clear policy directive is an important step in the school safety journey.
Training and Limited IT Resources.
Another common issue facing districts is their ability to allocate the time and resources needed to implement and train staff on a school safety product. This is important, as districts across the country are faced with increased responsibilities and less staff to perform vital functions.
When selecting a provider, it is important that the software vendor is flexible with timelines and can implement the solution without overwhelming district resources. A provider who offers flexible support aids as well as customizable training and implementation options greatly increases the chance of a successful onboarding process and ongoing staff adoption.
Funding Restraints for School Safety Solutions.
As with all new purchases, funding plays a major role as to whether a specific product is selected. This underscores the importance of selecting a corporate partner who will work alongside you.
How Raptor can help
When you partner with Raptor, you are choosing a partner that will:
- Innovate constantly to stay on the leading edge of school safety. With Raptor Connect, for example, schools can take full advantage of their digital emergency response technologies—and have the ability to activate all from a single point.
- Provide admin and user training and support to help ensure your district’s overall, sustainable success. Raptor Technical Support is available to answer day-to-day questions, and Raptor University is available 24/7 with online access to training materials, including documentation and video tutorials as well as live and recorded webinars.
- Assist your district in locating grant funding, ESSER funding, and other monies earmarked for school safety is a benefit because they are drawing on nationwide expertise and are equipped to assist with finding creative solutions.
3. Choose the Right Safety Partner
There is a difference between selecting a provider and selecting a partner. A provider may sell you the product you want, but a partner is there alongside you, actively working with you to increase safety measures on your campus.
With Raptor as your partner, you can rest assured your district will have continued support, flexible timetables for implementation, and a commitment to outstanding customer experiences. Our Customer Success team works with you to navigate funding options, provide professional references, and help lay the groundwork with proven policy examples.
We never stop developing solutions that set the standards in the school safety marketplace.
We Are All in This Together
Protecting children is the responsibility of community stakeholders—parents, teachers, administrators, and SROs all bear a tremendous responsibility when it comes to protecting schools. Raptor Technologies is a safety solution that honors that responsibility. Backed by people with a shared vision and sense of mission, we work with you to protect every child, every school, every day.
Related Resources
Guide to K-12 ESSER Funding
Strategies to Maximize the Reallocated ESSER Funds
Listen to this blog
4 minutes
