Security and Education: A Best-Case Scenario
Chesterton High School is known for its championship speech and debate program, not school security. The Indiana public school has been dominant in speech and debate for so long that the National Forensics Society actually changed the rules after Chesterton’s five-year winning streak a decade ago.
“We won so many titles, they decided not to name a single national champion anymore,” recalled Principal Jan Bergeson as she prepared for the new facility’s second school year.
When construction on the new high school began in 1999, a large battery of security cameras and a controlled access floorplan were just two of the features Bergeson eagerly anticipated. Librarians couldn’t wait to occupy the new centrally-located, 12,245-square-foot media center. The old high school had two libraries at opposite ends of the building because one was not large enough. Central air conditioning also sounded very nice. The existing facility’s air conditioning system only covered 40 percent of the building-reserved for the many windowless classrooms. “Teachers tried, but when it’s 95 degrees in a classroom-over 100 with humidity-not a lot of learning goes on,” says Bergeson.
Science teachers were even using the new school project in their lesson plans, showing students how Fanning/Howey designers, working with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, were consolidating isolated wetland areas into one large, flourishing habitat. Soon, there would be a bridge to access the wetlands for biological study.
And then security concerns intensified when, in April 1999, the tragedy at Columbine heightened security consciousness in the nation’s schools. Many commentators connected Columbine’s large size with the assailants’ alienation. At the time, the Chesterton project was the largest masonry project in the United States. Encompassing 10.6 acres of space under one roof, Chesterton remains the largest high school built in Indiana at one time.
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Project Data Architect: Fanning/Howey Associates Inc. |
“Some of the intensive electronic security measures that were added were not part of the original planning, both because we didn’t know if we had enough money and because publicity about Columbine had yet to focus attention on high school security everywhere,” says Doug Wickstrom, project manager for Fanning/Howey Associates Inc.
Monitor and Respond
Security cameras are not insurance policies against school violence. Chesterton’s parents and staff wanted officials from the Duneland School Corporation to tell them how an emergency could be prevented-and what could be done to react to an emergency when prevention failed.
Construction was underway, but there was time to implement a new system. Fanning/Howey would become the first firm to specify a complete emergency response system by Detection Systems of Fairport, N.Y., then newly-integrated for use in schools by Encompass Network Solutions of Indianapolis (formerly Electrical Systems).
The Teacher Emergency Locating System (TELS) is meant to compensate for the limitations of cameras in an emergency response. “Cameras are largely there to protect someone after the fact. If you have a fight or somebody breaks in, you can tape it,” says Riyad Bannourah, Fanning/Howey’s in-house security systems consultant. “But the key fob device [TELS] is there to save lives-to protect the faculty and students in cases of health emergencies and physical threat.”
Each wing of Chesterton High School is fitted with a TELS transponder that sends and receives signals to and from the security office. Teachers carry a key fob, similar to a remote car door opener, which acts as both a duress alarm and a tracking device. To initiate a signal, the teacher pushes two buttons, set back to back on the key fob, silently paging the principal and the security officer and activating a TELS monitor in the security office.
Recording begins instantly. The teacher’s name and picture pop up on the screen. TELS monitoring also shows the viewer which classroom the teacher is in and, if the teacher leaves the classroom, he/she can be tracked throughout the building, even several feet outside. In addition, the images are monitored from the district’s central security office five miles away. Both the TELS and CCTV displays are accessible on the school corporation’s Wide Area Network, allowing anyone with a pass code to receive these images on their desktop computer. After school hours, the system pages the Chesterton Police Department.
“We spent more than $3 million on technology at Chesterton, and it was worth spending another $100,000 to provide this protection,” says Bannourah.
All of Chesterton’s 126 Panasonic cameras have pan/tilt/zoom functionality, covering the entire parking lot and every hallway and exit door. In high traffic areas, as many as four cameras are housed in the now-familiar black domes installed in the ceiling tile. Fanning/Howey chose a camera lens that could pick up images at night when the only illumination comes from the emergency lights, which are also the school’s night-lights.
It was also important that Chesterton’s video system have provisions for digitalization, technology the district was unable to afford at the time of construction. Many security consultants envision a future where wireless, digital video communications can be monitored not only in police stations, but in patrol cars as well. Although Chesterton is still a long way from implementing this technology, the current system does not preclude incorporating such future advances.
But cutting-edge technology that addresses worst-case scenarios is not the mainstay of campus security. Long before the string of well-publicized incidents of school violence, the problems of social isolation in large high schools was being addressed by the architecture community as a basic part of planning.
Security Serves Education
“Flexibility,” a term one hears repeatedly from school officials and architects associated with the Chesterton High School project, applies to both security and academics. Components that enhance the social and academic life at Chesterton often serve a security function at the same time.
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Project Suppliers Brick/Masonry: Interstate, Illiana Block & Brick |
The school’s freshmen are as likely to notice the secure floorplan and security electronics as they are the large windows around the 500,000-square-foot building. A meticulously landscaped inner courtyard was created to provide even more opportunities for daylighting and for accessibility to art and science classrooms. And the courtyard has a security function, too. “The district wanted a closed campus so they could control the students during the day, but there’s always the fear that students will feel confined,” says Wickstrom. “Having student access to the courtyard allows controlled experiences outside.”
In addition, schools like Chesterton have long been planned using Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED, pronounced ‘SEPTED’). These guidelines are fostered by law enforcement agencies around the world in all types of facilities. CPTED calls for not only CCTV systems but also clear fields of vision, effective lighting, and “natural access control,” whereby symbolic and actual barriers are used to restrict, encourage, or channel ingress and egress.
Implemented correctly, simple things like good lighting or being able to see the entrance clearly from the parking lot make building occupants feel more comfortable, which in turn makes intruders feel uncomfortable. These precepts worked well with the Duneland School Corporation’s goal of breaking the school into neighborhoods.
Design provisions accommodate a college-type class schedule in which students would be educated in more intimate groups based on grade level. (The plan for “grade houses” has not yet been implemented, but the floorplan is proving effective in the interim, officials say.) “If you make a group smaller, it’s easier to see them as humans,” says Project Manager, Wickstrom.
The bulk of the school’s technology serves academic, not security purposes. Fiber optics are only the beginning. Chesterton is also known for its campus radio station, now housed along with the television production program in a new lab with a control room, announcer booths, and studios. In addition to the school’s radio shows sent out from the radio lab, students can broadcast from the stadium’s press box via the school’s fiber-optic network. Antennas on the roof of the building allow commercial radio stations to pick up the school’s feeds via microwave.
And since the school is not willing to have the reputation of its speech and debate team overshadowed by security features, the facility includes 1,800-square-feet in general-purpose space for the forensics team, adjacent to the media center, to give debaters easy access to research materials. Operable walls allow the room to be used for either small group activities or for presentations before a large audience. Acoustically-isolated practice rooms with mirrors allow students to develop strategies in seclusion. And, like all areas within the building designed for after-hours use, the speech and debate space can be isolated to prevent access to the rest of the school.
“The building not only gives the district some flexibility in terms of the delivery of academic programs, but it gives them some flexibility in terms of how they structure the building socially,” says Wickstrom. “If you create that smaller structure within the building, it provides some of the perceived advantages of a smaller school in terms of social fabric and encourages relationships that don’t leave students feeling like a face in the crowd.”