Chief of District Security Chris Wynn Weighs In on the Who, What & Why of Campus Security Systems

3) What are some steps a school should take when deciding on which security system to go with?

I think the Raptor system, which is our lobby management system, is probably the most recent one that we’ve taken from concept to full implementation. I think the first thing you have to do is figure out what you’re trying to accomplish. It can be relatively fool-hardy to sit down at a single vendor presentation and say oh, this is what we want, without really thinking about it or involving your staff, involving the cabinet level positions and finding out what you want this particular system to do.

Once you have an idea of what you want it to do, then I suggest finding out if schools in the area have something similar that you can do and look at. We actually went out and looked at a couple of different systems in the local area just to see if there was something we missed, are there other things that are possible, or does this system not meet what we’re looking for to begin with? Once we had those ideas, then we started contacting vendors.

4) How does a school manage a security system, and who should be involved with managing it?

The biggest pitfall schools can find themselves in is that they let somebody silo all the information in one place. When you’re looking at either the management or implementation process of it, you have to get people involved. I can tell you that I don’t know how the lobby of an elementary school works, so I have to go out to talk to people, the receptionists, the principal, and find out how that system works. They all have to be involved in the conceptual part of the process.

I think that converts a little bit once you get into the implementation phase. Obviously, in 2015, there’s technology tied into almost everything, so you really do need to get your information systems departments involved at a very early stage. Every IT department has different standards of their own IT security features. Whether something that’s web-based required servers, how it’s going to be protected, who’s going to have access to it, you have to get your IT folks on board with that quickly because what looks like a great idea to me may not be able to tie into our current technology system.