Editor’s note: FM Perspectives are industry op-eds. The views expressed are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of Facilities Management Advisor.
The senseless killing of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in rural Georgia on Sept. 4 once again begs the question, “How do we stop these school shootings?”
It seems we ask the same question after each school shooting without producing an answer.
There Is No Single Solution
I believe we can develop effective prevention strategies when governors, city managers, mayors, local law enforcement, community leaders, technology innovators, school administrators, mental health providers, teachers, school counselors, and parents all come together and become much more involved in the development of plans, procedures, and training on how to address both the prevention and the response to school shootings in their communities.
So, how do we fix this? Here are some recommendations.
The Use of Technology
Using advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI) readily available through commercial sources would greatly enhance the security of our schools. Smart cameras can identify a person carrying a weapon and communicate the threat across the spectrum of teachers, staff, students, police, fire departments, and EMS. In addition, providing teachers with a FOB to wear around their neck, which if pressed, activates a notification and alarm system, would be highly effective and beneficial. This was clearly shown in the Georgia incident, as these types of panic buttons were used to alert officials during the Apalachee shooting.
Time is the greatest asset we have in saving lives. The quicker we can identify and communicate a threat, the more lives will be saved.
Data-driven video technology has emerged as an effective solution to help secure our nation’s schools. Open-platform video management software (VMS), smart cameras, sensors, and intelligent analytics provide insights to quickly identify and address safety and security threats.
While most schools have video security systems in place, these systems are often used only for reviewing incidents after the fact. However, VMS integrated with AI and smart sensors can bring together information to identify threats more quickly. These systems can identify and communicate when weapons are displayed and when fire, flooding, fights, vandalism, violence, even vaping are occurring.
Finally, VMS systems can provide first responders with a level of situational awareness to know the exact location of the shooter, which would significantly improve their ability to address the threat immediately upon arrival.
Disrupt the Pathway to Violence
It is imperative that we address both prevention and response. A critical element in preventing these acts of violence is by focusing on those individuals who are most likely to commit these heinous acts.
In the Apalachee (Georgia), Uvalde (Texas), and Parkland (Florida) school shootings, the students and teachers stated after the incident that they were not surprised when the identity of the shooter was released. If this is the case, why wasn’t a thorough “threat assessment” done on the individual? Why wasn’t the individual interviewed, along with his parents, his siblings, his friends, his classmates, his teachers, and the school counselor? During these interviews, it could be determined if the person were on a path to violence.
The assessment could determine whether the person had access to weapons or was able to acquire weapons. Contrary to widely held beliefs, these violent offenders do not just “snap” and decide on that day to commit mass murder. Research and post-event analysis show that the offender had a “pathway” that led up to the violence. If we can find a way to intersect this pathway to violence, then we may be able to prevent the violence.
A behavioral threat assessment team comprised of school counselors, teachers, and psychologists could be one solution to help prevent these tragic incidents. For this to work, we must invest in our school counseling program. The average ratio of students to counselors in the United States is 482-to-1. This is nearly double the 250-to-1 recommended by the American School Counselor Association. Most elementary schools do not have any school counselors or share one counselor across multiple schools. Our prison system has a far better prisoner-to-counselor ratio than our schools. This should not be the case!
Enhancing the school counseling program across America will have a significant impact on preventing school violence by identifying and disrupting a potential shooter’s pathway to violence. It should be noted that in the vast majority of school shootings, the shooter communicated his violent intent to friends and family and on social media, prior to the evil act.
School Resource Officers
Another “easy fix” is to place a highly trained, armed individual (or two) in every school in America. This can be a police officer, school resource officer, or a retired military or law enforcement officer.
Regardless, all must go through rigorous psychological testing and be proficient at de-escalation techniques, intelligence collection, crime prevention, dispute resolution, life-safety medical response, and active threat response. That is, they must be able to have at least one full day of training per month. These protectors of our children need to be hand-selected and be the best of the best, not a run-of-the-mill, poorly trained, underpaid security guard.
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
For all new school construction or school renovations, we need to look at Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED, to enhance school perimeter and internal security while being aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Using CPTED we can establish concentric rings of security to include an inner, middle, and outer ring that are invisible to the untrained eye. Immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attack, we were able to “harden” every cockpit on every plane on every airline. We can do the same to our schools without making them look like state penitentiaries.
Solutions include doors that are locked automatically, ballistic glass and doors, concrete planters, drop walls to isolate the shooter, mass notification systems, readily identifiable alarms used only for active shooter events, and cameras covering both the interior and exterior of the school, including the parking lot.
Parental Involvement
Parents must get involved and not assume anything about the safety of their children while at school.
Parents should do their due diligence and ask their child’s teacher what their actions would be if an active shooter event occurred at their school. Parents should demand to see their school’s active shooter response plan. They need to know if the plan is sound, safe, and effective.
Parents should be involved in the decision-making process of how the school trains and implements its active shooter response plan. If the local school board pushes back on parent involvement—push back harder! The parents have the right to know and the need to know exactly what the teacher will do with their children in the event of an active shooter.
School Plans and Procedures
Finally, it is time to reevaluate our school standard operating procedures that force our students and teachers to remain in the school, where the shooting is occurring. Maybe we should look at alternative solutions and incorporate the philosophy of “get off the X”—that is, get as far away from the shooting location as possible. Let us put our brightest minds on this matter and decide if designing a different response, other than hiding in the corner of the room during a shooting, is better for our children’s safety.
What are the school’s protocols for when an active threat is identified, or a threat is communicated? In the recent shooting at Apalachee High School, the mother of the shooter phoned the school prior to the attack and warned about an “extreme emergency” involving her son. Plans need to be written, communicated, and practiced for a multitude of potential risks, threats, and dangers.
Conclusion
Integrating data-driven video systems and smart sensors (AI) represents a significant step toward creating a safer and healthier learning environment. To get the full potential of these technologies, school administrators must ensure that they are implemented thoughtfully. This means considering privacy issues, obtaining necessary permissions, and ensuring that the technology is used ethically and responsibly.
The recent Georgia school shooting shows us that even with school resource officers on-site, that alone is not enough to stop school shootings. As previously stated, there is no single solution. The solution is multifaceted and requires the collaboration and cooperation of many, many entities and industries. The constructive interaction between these entities has one goal: the prevention of violence. Let us put together our brightest and most innovative minds and develop strategies that focus on prevention and response.
An internationally recognized expert on active shooter and counterterrorism, Greg Shaffer is the author of “Stay Safe: Security Secrets for Today’s Dangerous World” and the founder of Dallas-based Shaffer Security Group (SSG). He also served 20 years as a Special Agent in the FBI, where he was an operator on the agency’s elite Hostage Rescue Team (FBI-HRT). Most recently, Shaffer has joined forces with Chris Grollnek at the Active Shooter Prevention Project LLC (ASPP), where they are working to end the scourge of school shootings by focusing on prevention first.