K-12 SAFETY: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN EDUCATION SECTOR
In classrooms, fear of school shootings and legal responsibility are two reasons school board officials use to illustrate that safety defensive applications are worth investing in. There is a vast amount of general literature on school risk management and planning tools. Numerous studies advocate for schools to carry out risk evaluations, and a vast range of web platforms offer risk management toolkits. The research literature is comprehensive in discussing the need for risk management in schools and widely cites components of risk assessment methods and processes; however, few sources evaluate these specific areas, tools and techniques.
School violence adversely impacts the potential consequences of children’s lives and the community and the school’s success
For these purposes, the advancement of school safety is a strategic concern for many government departments, including the National Institute of Justice https://nij.ojp.gov/search/results?keys=school%20shooting. Research reflects public safety technology as one of the approaches to stopping and reacting to school shootings. One such study summarizes current literature on school violence, categorizes school safety innovations and explains available research. Another introduces case studies on emerging technologies that are being implemented in classrooms, summarizes expert perspectives on technology, safety concerns based on interviews, and presents expert rankings on the technology needed to enhance school safety. These efforts have shown that some of the most critical safety needs that technology could solve are linked to:
- Allow two-way contact between teachers and emergency responders;
- “All-in-One” applications that will incorporate already fragmented and obsolete public safety measures, protocols, and instruction for school staff and parents
- Advances in tracking social media
- Improved tip lines to make them more durable and practical. Results may concern agencies and people interested in K–12 school technology preparation, research support, and product creation.
School safety is a question of the utmost priority (and rightly so), particularly in today’s world. There have been so many tragedies in classrooms; schools’ safety must be improved to meet existing and changing safety requirements. Technology can be applied in various ways to provide schools with the tools required to maintain a safe learning experience for all.
The emphasis here is on protecting a school’s physical environment, rather than on virtual risks such as cyberbullying, malware, and data privacy. The most common types of school security technology—door locks, lighting, and alarms—are not widespread. In developing and underdeveloped nations and some developed countries, the battle to acquire necessary learning skills such as students, teachers’ assistants, student health services, books, paper, laptops, and room lighting takes priority over safety-related technologies. Fire detectors and fire suppression technology also take precedence over protection technology.
Some schools will need to go past metal detectors, local door locks, and door intercoms or buzzers to secure schools.
School violence is not uncommon.
In the 2009–10 academic year, 74% of public schools reported at least one abuse incident, including severe violence, fighting, physical assaults, and intimidation. And school shootings have been on the upswing: 18 percent of all school shootings in the United States’ history have taken place in just the last six (6) years.
https://www.thetrace.org/2019/08/children-teens-gun-deaths-data/
Many things impact the risk of violence at school.
The classroom environment is one factor that influences the risk of violence happening at school. Abuse is even more prevalent in areas with the least parental oversight, such as hallways, restrooms, and stairwells. Other critical considerations include pupil actions and behaviors such as drug misuse, mental health symptoms, belief in aggression, misbehavior in education, and previous exposure to violence. Authors Define 12 forms of school safety technologies. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/250274.pdf
- The innovations listed include entry-level control devices, ID technology, video monitoring, and school-based warning and security systems. Other technologies found were metal detectors and X-ray devices, anonymous tip lines, surveillance systems, mapping schools and bus routes, use of crime detection apps, and social media monitoring.
Recommendation
Many experts describe a variety of places with the ability to improve protection in U.S. schools. This includes investment in engagement strategies, comprehensive school safety programs, enhanced tip lines, and improved technology maintenance. Schools need more insight into what works. Technology engineers need to validate their technology ideas in real-world settings. Schools need to create an all-hazards education strategy, investigate the root psychological and social issues that contribute to school shootings, and ensure that the technology they consider fits the existing school environment and defines school needs.
Protecting Our Students introduces the POSSafetyNet℠ app (software app to assess strengths and vulnerabilities to deter school shootings on school campuses). In our standardized K-12 uniform gun protection policies and procedure app, we evaluate the successes and shortcomings of school districts around the country to recognize any required security and safety improvements and policy reform enhancements. Provided that no school is the same, we are unifying gun protection strategies to comply with the demographics of the school:
- Primary and Secondary
- Geographic Locals
- Enrollment/Teacher/Admin Size, Building, Land Size
The ultimate aim of this app is to include the highest-priority technologies needed to increase school safety.
School administrators may reduce their risk exposure in their district, house, or venue by incorporating our protection technology. Applying risk assessment to public safety technology choices is discussed by a study of scholarly and technical literature. These techniques help detect threats, assist in the preparation, and allow the school or school district to consider emerging security issues. Our software solution can help school workers deter and defend from illegal exploitation. Our app has the same advantages as a manual method—building or improving safety relationships—and eases managing plans.
Schools, districts, and states are looking to data and technologies to resolve school safety concerns such as school shootings, violence, and self-harm. Despite the increasing awareness of inadequate data quality and preliminary analysis on child safety, there are federal and state lawmakers who recommend expanding technological school safety measures to enhance school safety. Technical school safety initiatives are being debated, including incorporating student education data with other forms of personal information; and data access extension. However, these programs can hurt the students they are meant to shield. As decision-makers look to data and technologies to try to make schools and students better, there are critical factors that can guide decision-making by practitioners:
- Feasibility and accuracy: most technological school safety programs are unproven, have known technical weaknesses, are difficult to audit, and almost inevitably yield false positives that may expose students to excessive investigation and contact with law enforcement. Invasive and chilling effects: over-the-counter monitoring, obligatory hazard notification, and law enforcement access to comprehensive data create significant threats to students’ anonymity, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to learn. Excessive control can chill students’ voices, associations, gestures, and access to vital services and turn a school from a learning atmosphere to a surveillance environment that potentially makes students feel less secure.
- Unequal outcomes: Intensified monitoring and use of algorithmic risk analyses are expected to have a disproportionate effect on minority students and other under-represented or under-served classes, such as refugee families, students with past discipline problems experienced with the criminal justice system, and students with disabilities.
- Cost and resource management: Schools have limited resources and lack of experience to assess school protection systems, so they cannot focus too much on a single device or data system, particularly with little evidence that technical school safety measures make schools safer.
- Governance mechanisms: Emerging technology and data structures will not be successful and could raise school safety risks if implemented without specific rules or guided by teacher, parental, and community input on how these systems will be used and regulated.
