Threat of Shootings Turns School Security Into a Growth Industry
Richard Soloway, the chief executive of Napco Security Technologies, which makes safety software
systems, said in an investor call on Feb. 5 that campus safety was a “significant opportunity.”
The vast and expanding array of security products can confuse school officials, said Stacie Dinse, the marketing
director of Rauland, which has provided communications systems to schools for more than 75 years.
But Heather L. Schwartz, who has studied safety technology for the RAND Corporation, said that research into what actually works is “really thin.”
“There’s not a lot of evidence to help districts sort through the pile before investing in costly systems,” she said.
“Right now, there’s going to be a lot of appropriations dollars being sent to school districts without a lot of oversight,”
said Curtis S. Lavarello, executive director of the School Safety Advocacy Council, a training provider.
He said, “I’ve seen everything from door locks to apps to analytics to metal detectors, and I haven’t even gone through all of them yet.”
Schools were generally considered a safe haven from the outside world until 1999, when two
students at Columbine High School in Colorado massacred a dozen students and a teacher.
“Twenty years ago, school safety and security needs revolved around student fights, vandalism, weather-related emergencies
and health-related emergencies such as a student asthma attack,” she said.