As parents and students nationwide prepare to return to school, concerns over school safety continue to grow. With numerous high-profile incidents of active threats in the news, parents and educators are grappling with the best ways to protect students and staff from danger.
As a result, Texas has created several new House bills—including H.B. 3 and 13, which are specifically aimed at improving school safety. The bills set forth a series of mandates, such as an independent assessment of a school’s security measures, additional funding for upgrading security protocols, and a mandate for schools to develop an active shooter plan. To comply with the new legislation and to create safer environments, schools are implementing various measures, including enhanced security protocols and technology, to prevent and respond to active threats. Key Lockable Storage Box
The Northwest Independent School District (NISD) in Fort Worth, Texas, has become a breakout example of how “outside the box” thinking has led to the proactive enhancement of their security platform and compliance with the new bills by integrating electronic key management into existing access controls and establishing a solid partnership with local law enforcement and emergency management.
NISD has rapidly emerged as one of the fastest-growing school districts in Texas, encompassing 234 square miles, 14 cities and towns, and parts of three counties, with an annual enrollment of more than 30,000 students. However, with a growth rate of 1,400 new students each year and the addition of five new campuses for the 2023–24 school year, the district is poised for decades of growth. The breadth of the school also proved a challenge should an active threat occur due to the multiple counties and protocols established by each responding department.
Michael Conklin, the NISD executive director of safety and security, recognized the challenges in this thriving environment. To address the safety concerns specific to the education environment, he saw an opportunity to advance the district’s electronic key management solution—which was already in use for fleet management—and integrate with their access control system and Traka Box.
Conklin initially deployed Traka’s electronic key cabinets for maintaining their vehicles but soon seized the opportunity to optimize their functionality. Beginning in 2019, they embarked on a district-wide implementation of the key cabinets that could be integrated with their existing access control platform, enabling local first responders to gain expedited entry into the facility using a key fob during an active threat situation.
Bridging their asset and access control solutions together was just the start, though. Conklin still had to figure out how to ensure any city or county responder could access the system regardless of their agency. For Conklin, the small investment of purchasing key fobs for individual first responders seemed the logical solution. Not only did this strategy help comply with the Texas bills’ added requirements, but combining the infrastructure with the Traka Box and key fobs would create a unified system—unlike traditional solutions, which would not have sufficed because of the logistics involved in managing multiple keys for different police and fire districts.
This article originally appeared in the September / October 2023 issue of Campus Security Today.
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