The title of a recent article caught my attention – “Last Line of Defense”
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/19/universitys-new-whiteboards-double-bulletproof-shields
The article talks about how a higher education institution has spent $60,000 on whiteboards that can be utilized by teachers as bulletproof shields.
The president of the institution said: “We are not really doing this in response to a specific event; I see it more as an opportunity to be prepared and to be proactive in our approach to safety on campus,” Bell said. “We think that it’s worthwhile.”
This comment highlights a very serious and very dangerous awareness gap with many school and college administrators. REACTING to a threat that is in your classroom is not a proactive approach to safety, but yet another REACTIVE security approach that offers little to no protection the entire classroom.
Medieval shields were used to protect a soldier or knight from direct blows from the weapons of their enemies and these types of shields were used from 800 to 1500 A.D.
Innovator colleges (and schools) like these are spending far less money on a new proactive prevention platform that equips everyone with the right tools to proactively prevent expensive, embarrassing and tragic incidents. Proactive prevention is the real key to School and Student Safety…which is much different than School/Student Security (see previous blog here).
Evidence from nearly every targeted shooting clearly reveals the tragic incident was preventable if the organization (school, college, business, military base, etc.) would have had a central prevention platform to connect all the right dots so the at-risk individual(s) could have been identified and intervention could have taken place before their aggression level escalated to a place where the last line of defense (shields, locks, cameras, armed guards, etc.) is never enough to stop them from causing expensive and tragic incidents.