Ensuring students and staff are safe on campus is a critical issue for education providers. With increasing concerns around vandalism, kidnappings, and shootings, education providers are choosing to integrate their security solution with school management systems to increase campus security, enhancing student wellbeing, and creating an efficient and cost saving environment.
Ensuring students and staff are safe on campus is a critical issue for education providers. With increasing concerns around vandalism, kidnappings, and shootings, education providers are choosing to integrate their security solution with school management systems to increase campus security, enhance student wellbeing, and create efficiencies and cost savings.
Safety and compliance
An
access system that requires students, staff, and visitors to badge in and out secures a campus by channeling people through specific access points, keeping them out of restricted areas, and creating a record of who is on site. By tracking access card use, this system can also assist staff with identifying students who may need support due to absenteeism or low attendance.
Integrated security and
video surveillance systems allow schools to check security footage in real time when an alarm is activated. This enables staff to review the cause of the alarm – for example, students have wandered into restricted areas or there are unauthorized visitors on campus – and respond to the threat accordingly.
Integrating student data with an access system ensures students leave campus safely. A school in Hong Kong has linked
Gallagher Command Centre with their student database. When a student badges out at the end of the day, a photograph of their sibling, parent, or caregiver appears on the security station, assisting the school in ensuring students leave with the correct people - mitigating the risk of kidnappings.
A single source of truth
Student database integration removes the need to duplicate information across multiple platforms and creates a single source of student data, ensuring information used by the security system is correct and up to date. With real-time updates, any changes made in the student database are reflected in the security system within seconds.
A university in the United Kingdom improved their student accommodation arrival process by automatically granting access via their accommodation management system, through a Gallagher Command Centre integration. This allowed students to instantly gain access to their rooms with a combined
access key and student ID card. Students no longer need to queue for their keys - reducing staff administration.
Creating efficiency
Integrating access control and building management systems can enable schools to save on utility costs and use staff time more efficiently. By synchronizing class timetables and access systems, rooms can be programmed to unlock automatically when required and facilities such as lighting and heating/air conditioning can be programmed to turn on only when the room unlocks, decreasing energy use.
A New Zealand school using Gallagher’s
Command Centre to manage their facilities reported a 30% saving on their energy bills, as well as an increase in the life span of air conditioning units due to their reduced use. Schools that successfully integrate security with other school systems create a safer, more efficient campus that improves the experience for students and staff. For more information, visit
security.gallagher.com