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Tag Archives: School Security

2 security agents at basketball game_1

ACT 67: Pennsylvania’s New School Security Guard Officer Law

By: Stuart J. Visnov, CEO, Echelon Protection & Surveillance
Word count: 735

2 security agents at basketball game_1As you may know, Pennsylvania has mandated that all schools comply with the new ACT 67 School Security Personnel Law which requires school security guards to complete the Basic School Resource Officer Course of Instruction offered by the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) or an equivalent approved by Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD). Those currently serving as school security guards must complete training by early 2020 to continue to work at any Pennsylvania school that receives state funding.

Act 67, Senate Bill 621, in the 2019-20 legislative session makes changes to Article XIII-C of the School Code, including changing the title to “School Security.” Most of the changes involve school security personnel, including: school police officers, school resource officers (SROs) and school security guards. Learn more about the new ACT 67 School Security Personnel Law at https://www.psba.org/2019/07/act-67-of-2019-school-security-personnel/

Although all state funded PA schools and associated security guard providers must comply, there are a few perspective challenges to the new ACT 67 School Security Personnel Law that I’d like to share.

TRAINING COSTS
The first hurdle is the cost. Training is about $500.00 for a 40 hour class. If a guard is a salaried school district employee, the school would pay for the training as continuing education. However, if the guard is employed by a security guard company, it’s unclear who should pay for the training because the guard is a 1099 independent contractor. In this case, it’s most likely the guard would pay for their own training because the certification benefits them directly in terms of marketability. If the security company invests in the guard training, they take the risk of the guard leaving the company after they’ve been trained.

TIMING & LOGISTICS
According to the current law, school guards must be trained within the next 6 months. This means that most districts would have to hire several temporary guards for a week, while their proprietary guards are receiving their 40 hours of training. The best solution would be to schedule guard training during the summer, when most school guards are not working due to summer break. However, the timing of the new law doesn’t currently allow for this type of planning.

CALL-OUT COVERAGE
Another challenge will be guard call-outs. In the past, if a PA school security guard called out sick or took a PTO day, they could easily be replaced with another guard who had the same basic training and PA mandated vetting, including child abuse, FBI and PA background checks. Now that PA guards must be ACT 67 certified, it will not be easy for schools and security companies to pay $500 for guard training for employees that are only used as a back-up for school call-outs. The district’s only option may be to train a few salaried employees, so someone is always on staff to cover guard call-outs.

LAWFUL EXCEPTIONS
Often, new laws of this nature feature some type of built-in exemption, waiver, or grandfather clause which allows similar certifications or training to be accepted. These exceptions create a middle path of compliance until the new law can be fully implemented and all stakeholders are up to speed.

ENFORCEMENT
PA counties or townships don’t have the resources to set up a district ACT 67 enforcement process in addition to their current responsibilities. However, no law has teeth unless it includes a mechanism of enforcement. To start, this new ACT 67 School Security Personnel Law must be policed by the school district itself. The only way for the school to comply with the law is to strictly forbid any school security guard to work on campus unless the school district is in possession of every guards training certificate. The school would also be responsible for recertifying each guard as required by the law.

No law will be able to please everyone, but in my opinion, ACT 67 is a good idea, because until now, there was no professional standard for security guard training in PA. Setting guard standards also benefits the security industry as a whole, because it keeps low-cost security providers from selling schools on price instead of safety. There are hundreds of news items each year featuring un-vetted, unqualified security guards who caused problems instead of solving them. If the commonwealth is serious about keeping our students, faculty and staff as safe as possible – certified security guard training is a good common sense way to start.

Run Hide Fight

Tell Your Loved Ones to Run, Hide, Fight

By: Stuart J. Visnov, CEO, Echelon Protection & Surveillance
Word count: 689

Run Hide FightAs of early August 2019, there have been 255 mass shootings in the U.S. It’s hard not to become numb to the violence or the fact that we’re no longer completely safe at our schools, malls, concerts, churches or place of employment. If we’re not mindful, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the hate and violence that causes our fear and anxiety. Although the chances that you will be a victim of a mass shooting are low, the more prepared you are, the better your chances of survival in a worst case scenario. Although, there will never be a “one size fits all” rule for active shooters, I tell my loved ones to “run, hide, fight” because it’s easy to teach, remember and understand.

RUN away from the shooter

If you become aware of a shooter or hear gunfire, your best chance of survival is to try to escape. Whether you’re in familiar surroundings or a new location, take a few minutes to note the nearest exits. When possible, take the stairs instead of the elevators and remember that windows can also be used to escape. Students at Virginia Tech escaped the gunman in 2007 from a second-floor window. If you believe you could possibly be in the line of fire while you’re running, zigzag from cover to cover so you’re a harder target to hit.

Do not pull the fire alarm because it causes confusion and may send people out into open areas, where they could be easier targets. Instead, yell “gun” or “shooter” to inform people it’s not just a drill. Find out who the security director is at your school or work and ask them about active shooter drills, lockdowns and evacuations.

HIDE, if you can’t escape

If you cannot escape, attempt to hide anywhere there is a door. Lock or barricade the door to help deter access. Consider that office walls are often made of thin drywall, so if you can hide in a room that has an outside wall or no windows, you’ll be safer. If there’s no time to find a room with a door, hide under your desk. Your goal is to remove yourself from the shooter’s line of sight.

Do not play dead, because shooters have been known to come back and fire into wounded people. However, a teacher at Sandy Hook remained still after being shot and then escaped when the shooter left the area. Also, a student at Virginia Tech was shot while trying to escape but kept running and survived. The most important thing is to get yourself away from the shooter!

Once you’ve found a hiding place, turn off lights and call 911 to explain what’s happening. Then, mute your phone and be as quiet as possible, but leave your cell phone on so the dispatcher can continue to hear what’s going on. Stay low, but do not laydown, because that would make it harder to attack the shooter if he finds your hiding place. Remember that social media could give away your hiding place or alert the shooter to the location of the police.

 FIGHT as a last resort

Experts agree that confronting a shooter should be a last resort because most people do not have the proper training to have a good chance at stopping a gunman. Your only option is to find some type of object to use as a weapon against the shooter. Although a broom stick, coffee pot, baseball bat, scissors, hammer or chair may be the only weapons at hand, no level of force is inappropriate when it comes to saving lives.

It’s disheartening to think that although recent polls show at least 70% of Americans want common sense gun laws – less than 10% believe their representatives will do anything about it. In my view, when our representatives begin to remember that their job is to represent their constituents, instead of the big businesses who fund their campaigns, we’ll have a safer country. All we can do right now is educate ourselves on gun violence, stay vigilant and call our state representatives to lobby for faster change regarding gun control.

 

 

 

 

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ACTIVE SHOOTER Part 2: Keeping Every Person Safe

By: Stuart J. Visnov, Chief Executive Officer, Echelon Protection & Surveillance
Word count: 726

Active ShooterIn the 2 weeks between Part One and Part Two of this blog there have been 2 more “mass shootings.”  On June 17, 2018 at least 17 people were shot at an Art Festival in Trenton New Jersey, and  last week 5 more individuals were killed in a “mass shooting” in Annapolis Maryland.  Please note that the quotation marks around the words “mass shooting” are there to comply with the federal government’s definition in which “4 or more people are shot”.

When we look at the total number of 2018 shootings in which three or less people were shot, the number varies depending on differing statistics from a low of 100 to more than 154.  No matter what the actual number is, we can all agree that any number is much too high.

While Echelon security staff was not deployed at either site, it is our belief that the training our security guards receive prepares them for rendering immediate assistance to our clients in the vital minutes between the time the first shot is recognized, and the first responding law enforcement officer arrives.

Our officers are trained in the ugly truth that no matter how a venue is secured, that the assailant will always have the upper hand.  Unlike law enforcement, security staff or the general public, the assailant knew they left their house with the intent of coming to an event to take human lives –  everyone else did not.

Statistics have shown that nine times out of ten, the assailant is either a current or former student, employee, or patron of the venue and has knowledge of how to enter the building with the least amount of detection.

While many other security companies stress the basic training of our industry – customer service, patrol basics, and report writing (all invaluable security industry skills) we require that all applicants be competent in such areas before their formal training commences. Building on these core values we then focus on what to do when things go wrong:

  • Dealing with Difficult People
  • Observation Skills
  • Tactical Awareness
  • Crisis Response or Active Safety Response.

And, because about half of our guard force is unarmed, we focus on the role expected of them in such situations.

We do our utmost to impress upon each new officer that in crisis situations their role as an unarmed guard is to alleviate panic.  We make sure that they fully understand that in the precious few minutes until law enforcement arrives and the “threat is neutralized” that they will be the first person of authority that frightened employees, guests or patrons will turn to for guidance.

Their first duty is to get as many people to safety as possible, using evacuation routes that are the least dangerous.  Once this is done and people are safe, our guards are trained to alert authorities that there is a shooter on the premises.  We instruct our staff on how to call local authorities, 9-1-1 and what information to provide.

Our security instructors stress the importance of safely exiting a building and best practices for doing so.  We teach the basic skills to assess if safe exit is not an option and provide the knowledge through practical exercises such as:

  • Securing an area
  • Cover vs. concealment
  • Improvising locking devices
  • (and only when necessary) committing themselves to direct confrontation with the assailant
  • Interacting with law enforcement upon their arrival.

Echelon understands that the training provided to new security guard staff members is not equivalent to the rigorous training provided to law enforcement – nor is it designed to be.  Its purpose is to provide familiarity with concepts, empathy with victims, and to guide the proper actions in times of crisis situations.  Our first duty to our clients will always be to respond in a preventive and proactive fashion at the most critical times.

Yet, should the circumstances arise, and prevention is not possible, our security guard staff understands that our role is to:

  • Mitigate as much physical and emotional harm as possible
  • Decide upon the proper survival protocols
  • Make sure that techniques are correctly applied
  • Keep everyone safe and secure until law enforcement arrives and the threat is eliminated.

Every state has different standards in order to become a certified security guard, so Echelon provides our own proprietary training to ensure our officers are prepared to respond appropriately in any situation.

hand-erasing-gun-from-blackboard_Red filter

A Variety of School Security Training Keeps Everyone Safer

By: Don Benn, School Security Training Instructor, Echelon Protection & Surveillance.
Word count: 643

hand-erasing-gun-from-blackboard_Red filterEchelon has been providing security solutions for educational institutions and school districts since the company was founded in 2001.

At that time, our original duties were to provide a helpful, professional, uniformed presence to assist the school staff in standard activities such as hall monitoring, crowd control at sports events, traffic control at arrival and dismissal, deterring horseplay and breaking up the occasional fist fight. This traditional style of school security required minimal specialized training and little more than common sense, good-character, and a sense of responsibility on the part of our guards.

This changed drastically after the events of December 14, 2012 when a 20-year-old male in Newtown, Connecticut armed with multiple weapons shot his way into a locked local elementary school and in less than seven minutes murdered 20 students and 6 adult staff members before taking his own life. At the time, it was the deadliest mass school shooting in America.

Within a week of this horrific event, our focus at the 20 schools in which we worked at the time shifted from deterring horseplay to preventing tragedy. Working in conjunction with school safety experts, district professionals and governmental and security industry trainers we rethought, revised and expanded our own exclusive school security training.

All Echelon school security staff received our proprietary School Marshal training.  Acknowledging that the very notion of having uniformed security guards in schools is fraught with controversy, budget and public relations concerns, we sought areas of common ground in an effort to deliver the most effective and affordable school security solution.

In the weeks following the Newtown murders, Echelon security specialists accompanied school district leaders on safety and vulnerability inspections of their schools.  During these security assessments, recommendations were offered and incorporated into revised crisis prevention and response plans.  Echelon participated with school staff in district lockdown and evacuation drills. We shared our collective expertise and became more knowledgeable and better trained ourselves.

At that time, Echelon was viewed as an “outside vendor” who understood that our job was essentially to carry out the district safety policies that were already in place. In time, we became regarded as “security partners” that take the lead in assessing the risks and developing the proactive strategies and technology to prevent active shooters and other crisis related events. Currently we provide security for over 60 public, private, parochial, charter and religious schools on a full-time or part-time basis, and we are able to train every guard to respond to active shooter threats in order to protect the students, faculty and staff.

Our guards learn the basics of such tested and proven methods as Run-Hide-Fight, in which they learn to use confrontation as a last resort.  In addition, they receive training in Move-Escape-Attack, which is a little more flexible but a little tougher when in charge of a large group of students.

Our guards are exposed to a veritable alphabet soup of methods including A.L.I.C.E (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter & Evacuate) and C.O.U.N.T.E.R. (Consider Options Use New Thinking & Evade or Retaliate).  We teach these varied forms of response because we want our security guards to be able to adapt to the policies and protocols of whatever school they are assigned to protect.

With each new tragedy, like the latest Valentine’s Day shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida (17 killed), new information and strategies are formulated by law enforcement agencies and private security companies like Echelon. The best security guards will have a survivor/protector mindset. We train our guards to overcome the very basic human instincts of Flee, Fight, or (worse) Freeze.  A variety of training and technology provides our guards with more options to keep every person safe.

School Campus Security

School Safety Ensured: The Smart Solution

By: Stuart J. Visnov, Chief Executive Officer, Echelon Protection & Surveillance
Word count: 629

School Campus SecurityWhen parents send their children to school, the last thing they want to be thinking about is their safety. In response to this concern, a recent bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate has voted to allow teachers and employees to carry guns while at school. Passing by a narrow margin of 28 to 22, Senate Bill 383 would “allow workers with concealed carry licenses to possess guns in schools if they meet training requirements and pass a psychological evaluation.”

However, many state senators and those who study school violence remain opposed to such measures, including survivors of the Sandy Hooks Elementary School attack, who collectively wrote in an open letter that arming teachers or others “would not have made us or our students any safer. In fact, it might’ve made things worse.”

While on the surface, allowing teachers to carry guns may seem like a reasonable solution, experts in the field of law enforcement agree that it actually creates more potential for disaster and creates additional problems than it avoids. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “Laws that strip regulations for carrying guns in public places are associated with a 12% to 18% increase in violent crime over the 10 years following their adoption.” Furthermore, arming citizens who do not have access to the same training as law enforcements officials often leads to more casualties and more deaths.

For school administrators, the safest and most secure option is to hire professional security guards who embody the expertise and training needed to handle life-threatening situations. In this way, teachers can concentrate on their main purpose—educating students—while parents and students can rest easy, knowing that trained professionals are focused on the role of broad protection in multiple scenarios.

Proper school security relies on a mixture of planning, preparedness, and technology alongside vetted, trained, and certified security guards who are supervised by those outside of the school administration. Employing an experienced security company allows schools to look at the entire picture. First, most companies will develop a strategy by reviewing potential vulnerabilities in the school’s layout or design, as well as identifying and tagging the number of exit strategies that exist. They can then make recommendations for improvement. Secondly, a security company can create an emergency plan that can be shared among the teachers, administrators, and students as appropriate. As with most things, preparedness allows for much greater success in the event of an emergency. In addition, installing the proper technology such as video surveillance, or, in some cases, scanning mechanism, allows for a daily assurance that the property is being thoroughly monitored by individuals trained to spot problems.

The presence of certified school security guards offers numerous benefits. First and foremost, it creates an environment of accountability; those outside and inside the school recognize that an active monitoring system is in place, and threats of bullying or violence on all fronts are lowered. Secondly, with trained guards, you can be assured that responsive time and assessment in the event of an emergency situation will be enacted by individuals specifically trained to respond to these occurrences. Lastly, your students and faculty will not only feel safer, they will be better protected by guards whose sole purpose is to ensure their safety.

To learn more about how to best protect your school and your students, contact a representative at Echelon Protection & Surveillance. Our certified security guards and staff are the most highly-trained in the region, and members of our team come from backgrounds that include work in the highest ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department, Federal Agencies and other high-level, high quality areas. Our guards are supervised and monitored, and their progress and reports are documented on a regular basis to ensure transparency and accuracy.

 

School Security: The Importance of Highly Trained School Security Officers

School Security: The Importance of Highly Trained School Security Officers

By: Stuart J. Visnov, Chief Executive Officer, Echelon Protection & Surveillance
Word count: 682

In the past several years, we have seen our schools become the site of deadly mass shootings. According to statistic from FBI records in 2016, there had been 50 mass murders or attempted mass murders at schools since the Columbine shooting. In a recent report compiled by ABC News, there were a record 270 total shootings at schools since the Columbine event. While we prefer to imagine that our schools are safe and secure, the truth is that shootings are on the rise and gun laws become less stringent or stay the same, it is unlikely that this trend will change. However, school officials and administrators do not have to feel helpless. There are many tested and proven strategies to protect your students, faculty, and staff from this type of tragedy, and from lesser acts of violence, such as bulling or vandalism.

Many schools today do employ professional security guards, but unfortunately, they may not realize that their teachers, monitors or volunteers do not have the training or experience needed in the event of life-threatening challenges. And the unfortunate truth is that even trained security guards don’t provide 100% safety. To ensure you have taken every step possible to maintain the security of your educational facility, take the following steps:

  1. Keep your emergency team and staff up to date on training and resources. In other words, know what you’re process will be in the event of any type of emergency situation, including weather-related disasters, power outages, an accident on campus, internal violence and/or unexpected or threatening visitors. Make sure that your staff are clear on the steps to take in specific events, including the chain of command, an evacuation plan, where emergency exits and fire alarms are located, and other life-saving techniques such as CPR. These emergency processes should be reviewed and practiced on a regular basis, and new staff should always be trained on this information.
  2. Hire qualified school security guard personnel who can control building access, offer a visual presence as a deterrent, and who have the specific knowledge about how to handle a wide-range of difficult situations with the utmost care and professionalism. This investment may at first seem financially challenging, but Echelon Protection & Surveillance will work with you to develop both a sustainable and affordable solution to making your campus safe and secure.
  3. Respond immediately when you are worried about a student, faculty, or staff member who is exhibiting signs of stress, making threats or has a preoccupation with violence. Make sure that you communicate your counseling and/or psychological services to all of your students and employees frequently and in many different media. According the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education, 81 percent of school shootings happened even though someone had information that the attacker was considering or planning the event. Take each and every warning sign seriously and contact local authorities if you are concerned by a student’s behavior.
  4. Develop specific protection and safety protocols before, during, and after any school events including: athletics, special events, administrative meetings, and pick-up and drop-off locations for students. During these times, consider hiring trained security professionals to monitor these activities and events. Our security guards are trained and prepared to keep a close watch on your people and property in any situation, and to respond swiftly and appropriately if a problem or challenge arises.

If you take these steps, your students, faculty, staff and guests will be better protected, and feel safer. Having highly trained security guards onsite provides more than just a deterrent or presence in a uniform – they are professional goodwill builders and problem solvers with extensive real-world school experience. In addition, all of our school security guards possess specialized training to aid them in working with young people, allowing them to become an integrated and trusted part of your safe and secure educational environment.

We urge you to take the necessary steps to avoid becoming another tragic news story. These actions will in turn reduce your risk and liability. In the long run, you can focus on what matters most—educating students.

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