As security strategies for the upcoming school year revolve around reporting requirements and budgetary deadlines, a superintendent’s multi-faceted responsibilities will always center around the strongest focal point—school security.
Certainly, it remains a challenging obligation for school administrators to balance and actualize.
As the importance to reach beyond traditional school security methods continues to rise, superintendents are reaping the benefits and gaining insight that a smart card system provides. School districts are reporting a smart card system as the most advanced way to protect school entrances and experiencing the extended benefits of population management and behavior oversight.
In a recent study, 94 percent of nationwide public schools reported controlling access to their school buildings as the most successful safety and security measure during school hours.
Now, imagine the expanded opportunities and limitless solutions that a smart card system can bring to your school district’s security strategy.
“I think it will have a significant impact not only on school safety, but from an operations standpoint,” Assistant Superintendent Alyssa Emili explains.
A smart card system can help with school security beyond ordinary ID cards. By tracking and reporting on attendance and absenteeism in addition to building access control, schools can use the data available, thanks to smart ID cards, to proactively spearhead and tackle potential security problems.
Knowledge is Power: Understanding Your School Population
Classroom attendance and whereabouts must be monitored in the event of an emergency, whether it be an active threat or inclement weather. If a school cannot report on their student’s attendance or absence, the entire district may face severe consequences. Being able to streamline a procedure across your school campuses is an invaluable advantage.
Through the technological advancement of real-time reports and immediate access control, a smart card system help superintendents target an in-depth knowledge and control of their district-wide school population.
New York City’s Westbury Public School District needed to improve its attendance reporting. What’s unusual about this district is its high mobility rate, in which 20 to 25 percent of students leave school for weeks or even months at a time. The district was mandated by the state to improve attendance rates and track seat time for all students as part of the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) for teachers. The review uses a seat time mandate to calculate each teacher’s responsibility for a student’s performance.
As a strategy response, Westbury Public Schools decided to adopt contactless Smart ID cards and smart software data tracking to collect attendance data. Students simply tap their cards onto portable kiosks, providing real-time, automatic data of absences to both school staff and their parents.
The district can collect data from smart technology and use patterns discovered to make recommendations to improve attendance. When implementing ScholarChip’s all-in-one Smart ID solution, student truancy decreased by 80%, and class attendance improved across multiple school campuses.
Furthermore, the district met APPR’s rigid reporting requirements and ensured that teachers were able to account for seat time accurately.
Such attendance and accountability benefits are compelling a myriad of districts to adopt a smart card system and ID program to understand their school population and student behavior metrics. What’s more, a smart card system maximizes the ability to measure results for next year’s school security plans.
A Smart Card System is a Measurable Approach for Accurate Results
Undoubtedly, a smart card system safely and accurately enable an advanced collection of data from staff, students, and visitors.
How can your entire school district holistically gain a deeper insight into each person that enters and exits every building, bus, and school event?
Analyzing Student Behavior
Placing your school district in a positive position to monitor and manage behavior for which students are held accountable is key, specifically their attendance and general behavior at school. A smart card system provides a deeper insight into student behavior and aids in the prevention and intervention of behavior-related incidences (an essential part of an effective school security plan).
A robust all-in-one solution should include ABE (Alternative Behavior Educator), which teaches better behavior and monitors progress throughout a student’s career. Simultaneously, your administrators and teachers gain deeper insight through powerful data-driven reports that quickly flag at-risk students, help monitor and chronicle progress, and support decision-making tasks.
Arming Staff with Appropriate Tools for Prevention and Intervention
“How do we implement this technology?” School Administrators ask.
Fortunately, ScholarChip’s all-in-one solution offers proven ways to implement smart technology as a safety strategy without obstructing the actionable goals of your district.
It’s critical to note — smart card reader technology transcends beyond building and door access security alone. Smart card systems have expanded benefits that include:
- Ease-of-use for helping your staff and administration implement the smart ID care system;
- Back-end cloud-based servers that maintain detailed and sensitive information, making the smart ID card more secure;
- Smart ID Cards are almost impossible to replicate.
Access rights are guaranteed to be accurate and immediate with an all-in-one smart card reader solution. Appropriate cardholders are added and removed quickly, helpful when a student transfers or a staff member is no longer affiliated with a district. Knowledge certainly is power!
In a Long Island high school case study, Attendance Managers’ role efficiencies and responsibilities significantly improved with the implementation of the large-group attendance kiosk technology, a highlight in the all-in-one solution that a modern smart card reader technology yields.
With the increasing demand for accurate data collection and the need to raise attendance rates throughout school districts, the smartest choice for your school district includes ScholarChip’s comprehensive technology services. Our smart ID cards and smart card readers are the foundation to a great start to reducing chronic absenteeism with students, even helping identify students on field trips or at events.
ScholarChip is an all-in-one, platform solution to help reduce school threats and address the important issues surrounding school safety. Data from students, faculty, and stakeholders are leveraged to manage school access, attendance, and behavior management through the platform tools to increase safety, provide insight, and promote the campus climate schools are looking for.
Are you ready to take charge of your school’s population, performance, and staff productivity?
Gain accurate insight towards the success of this year’s upcoming security plan while optimizing your district’s climate. We invite you to schedule a 1-on-1 walkthrough with one of our specialists today!
ScholarChip is an all-in-one platform solution that helps schools proactively address student behavioral challenges, student safety, and chronic absenteeism, so they can prevent school violence before it happens. To learn more about the many solutions ScholarChip provides, or to get free recommendations, feel free to request a 1-on-1 call with one of our school violence prevention experts here