The Martin County School District in Florida upgraded its emergency communications system. Teachers and administrators use a card attached to their lanyards similar to a credit card. When repeatedly clicked, the cards issues an emergency alert, which cues sirens, flashing lights and communications over the speakers such as "This is a lockdown."
Duval County Public Schools in Florida have a 15-year priority plan to use a half-penny sales tax increase to improve the school through safety and security measures and major renovations.
Russell Bundy, Director of Security at the Leander Independent School District will conduct Security's free Solutions by Sector webinar on K-12 Security and how security leader in school positions can prepare for and emerge from situations of chaos that may happen.
The town of Oxford, Connecticut and its public schools will receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services to create a security operations center (SOC) with three personnel monitoring the district's four school campuses.
489 Virginia-area schools in 102 school divisions will share $12 million in security grant funding from the state's department of education. The grants will include monies for video monitoring systems, voice and video internal communications systems, school bus interior cameras, mass notification systems, visitor-identification systems, access control systems, two-way radios, security vestibules and other security upgrades.
Baltimore County Schools said schools will be closed for students through at least Tuesday, December 1, as a result of the ransomware cyberattack that forced schools to close last week. The threat actors behind the ransomware attack has not been reported.
As the pandemic continues to unfold, many schools have chosen to conduct classes virtually rather than in-person and school buildings have been left empty for durations longer than ever before. With less staff consistently working on school grounds, it can be easy to miss a potentially costly and time consuming emergency. Situations like a leaking pipe or a malfunctioning freezer can quickly go from a minor issue to a major problem if not dealt with as soon as possible. Without physical eyes on these situations, schools need to consider leaning more heavily on technology that can be their eyes and ears, such as environmental monitoring technologies that can allow administrators to monitor their school at all times, even when they’re not on-site.
