Keeping Schools Safe with an Open Data Platform

This article was originally published in the August 2024 edition of Security Journal Americas. To access this edition, click here.

Schools and school districts across the US are looking for new ways to improve student and staff safety.

In a recently released study, the National Center for Education Statistics found that in the 2021-2022 school year, there were over 857,000 violent incidents and over 479,000 non-violent incidents reported by public schools. In the first half of 2024, Everytown says that there have been over 100 incidents of gunfire and 29 deaths on school grounds in the US. With gun violence on the rise across the US, these numbers are expected to grow exponentially in the next few years.

Unfortunately, school safety concerns don’t stop at physical security. In addition to violent and non-violent incidents, schools are dealing with the widespread use of vaping and e-cigarettes by students. The scary fact is that, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), about 2.8 million students across the country currently use e-cigarettes, with a rise in usage among middle school students. Students are using these products on school grounds, creating another battle for administrators to fight to keep students safe.

Challenges with traditional physical security systems 

With rising school safety incidents and concerns continuing to plague schools across the nation, there’s an underlying issue impeding school administrators, IT teams and security teams from proactively addressing these concerns.

Traditional physical security systems aren’t up to the task of preventing or quickly resolving such school safety incidents. School administrators are wasting precious time logging into multiple outdated systems that are slow and may not talk to each other. This adds unnecessary burden while trying to manually determine if cameras are working and staring at desktops for hours sifting through footage.

While the physical security industry has grown tremendously and is projected to reach $500 billion in 2026, as research from ASIS International and the Security Industry Association (SIA) found, traditional systems are failing to keep up with the pace of innovation that is required to maximize school safety.

In addition, the on-premise nature of these systems often causes foundational issues – from unreliable cameras and high maintenance costs to data loss and slow response times. This means modern physical security systems, which are cloud-managed and secure, are stepping in to improve student and school safety as the need for robust physical security grows. However, physical security systems are now also expected to help with more than just physical security.

In addition to curbing gun incidents and other violent threats, modern physical security platforms can help meet broader school safety goals for schools, such as reducing bullying and minimizing student vaping – issues that are prevalent and need urgent attention.

An open data platform is paramount to meeting these broader goals – from gun violence to bullying and vaping.

What is an open data platform for physical security 

A robust physical security system consolidates cloud cameras, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, access control with AI analytics, and configurable alerts – all in a single pane of glass.

An open data platform allows a physical security system to be more flexible and personalized towards the needs of an organization, integrating with technology partners seamlessly. It serves its own data – through open application programming interfaces (APIs) – to easily work with other critical systems of an organization for simple, secure and smart security operations.

This allows school administrators, IT teams and security teams to streamline security and safety based on the needs of their unique operation, enabling them to save precious time responding to threats and, in many cases, preventing threats from even taking place. Physical security is not one-size-fits-all, so schools should be able to build a solution that works best for their institution and district.

If a school wants all new cameras in addition to native access control and environmental sensors, then they should be able to pick and choose what they want while also being able to continue to add on as years go by. If a school is satisfied with its current access control but requires new cameras, it should be able to keep that first solution while leveraging an open data platform to have them seamlessly work together.

Schools may also want to integrate other safety workflows with security cameras in the future based on their needs. There’s no longer a need to rip and replace every aspect of the current system and buy new solutions all at once. With an open data platform, schools can personalize their solution – today and into the future – as their needs evolve and enhance school safety.

The value of an open data platform for keeping schools safe 

In K-12 schools across the US, the shift from reactive to proactive use of physical security systems is on full display. IT, security, facilities, school resource officers (SROs), leadership teams and local police departments are reimagining physical security to be more collaborative and proactive to ensure the protection of students, staff and facilities.

The value for schools is that they can leverage existing systems and workflows while layering on cloud cameras for increased visibility and improved school safety – with the power of an open data platform.

With an open data platform, schools can:

1. Proactively minimize guns from entering campuses with AI visual gun detection that integrates with their cloud cameras and mass notification systems if a threat is detected
2. Keep buildings secure by combining cloud cameras and access control to verify visitors before they enter the building and remotely lock down buildings with visual threat detection
3. Prevent students from vaping on school grounds with cloud cameras and environmental sensors that can detect vaping and pinpoint offenders with indisputable video evidence

Future-proofing school physical security 

With one reimagined physical security system, schools now have an end-to-end safety solution, empowering school administrators to identify what’s happening at their locations and then quickly respond to incidents.

AI analytics and configurable alerts built on top of best-in-class cloud cameras, IoT sensors and access control systems allow schools to have a seamless, out-of-the-box physical security solution. Coupled with an open data platform, schools can build a more personalized solution – with technology integrations and open APIs – that maximizes school safety today and evolves with their future needs.

With tight budgets, increased scrutiny on student security and schools battling for state and federal funds, making the right choice for a new physical security system is more important than ever. It is critical that the system works with an institution’s current and future needs and not the other way around. Therefore, future-proofing school security with an open data platform for physical security systems needs to become table stakes for schools across the nation.

A reimagined physical security solution on an open and cloud-managed data platform will have an immediate impact on schools by:

• Reducing the number of systems internal teams need to manage
• Creating an end-to-end solution with different technologies working together
• Minimizing maintenance costs while maximizing reliability
• Streamlining scalability to any number of locations, cameras and users

Most importantly, it will deliver the school safety outcomes that each institution cares about the most – whether that is protecting students and staff from gun-related threats, reducing bullying or minimizing vaping on school grounds.

Click here to learn more about how Rhombus helps keep schools safe.