Access Control Improved in 55% of Campuses
Thanks to the greater awareness resulting from the Columbine tragedy, as well as government mandates and grant programs, lockdowns and shelter-in-place drills are much more common on K-12 campuses. Access control is also much improved at many schools and universities, although not all. “Our schools are so vulnerable because of their physical layout here in California,” says Ethan Hoff, safe school administrator for San Juan Unified School District. “Most have multiple entrances, so it’s impossible without physically redesigning the site.” 
Despite the concerns of those responsible for open campuses, according to the CS survey, 52 percent of K-12 respondents and 56 percent of university campuses have installed or upgraded their access control equipment. Thirty-one percent believe upgraded access control is one of the top five things a campus can do to improve security.
According to Marty Pessetti, assistant principal of Lakeview High School in Battlecreek, Mich., the process of upgrading access control can be tedious but is well worth the trouble. “We found there were a lot of maintenance issues in our buildings we had to deal with — doors that wouldn’t close,” he says. “We had to work hard with our maintenance department to get them to work on those issues so they understood their importance.”
Pessetti conducted practice lockdowns so he and his team could tour the buildings to look for issues, such as overgrown shrubs. “The first time we did them, we had a huge list of things,” he adds. “Slowly but surely, we whittled away at them. Because our building principals did the tours with us, they now have a better idea of what they should be looking for. They are now picking up the slack.” For some respondents, however, the cost of access control upgrades continues to be a barrier to its implementation. For example, Jerry Sturmer, who is director of educational safety and security for the Rialto (Calif.) Unified School District, wants to retrofit 30 of his district’s schools. “The technology is there if we just had the resources to put it in place,” he says.
