A burglar cannot usually carry off enough equipment during a single nighttime entry to put the school out of business, whereas in a short time a vandal or an arsonist can. Burglar alarms commonly protect the school kitchens, offices, computer rooms, labs and media centers. It is best, of course, if all areas are protected, including classrooms and hallways. Portable classroom units are frequently the last ones to receive communication and security technologies of any kind, but especially motion detectors or door contact burglar equipment. Night watchmen and second and third shift custodial staff can be good deterrents to burglars and vandals.
School security is a complex array of factors deliberately designed to control the facility.
Good security may depend upon several human factors, such as attitude, but good security is not the absence of a bad neighborhood, or even a history of good citizen neighbors and no trouble. Security is all of these and more. Most school people say that their primary concern with the security of their school is the easy accessibility of the campus or the facility and the lack of barriers for intruders. This perception which is sometimes stated as a feeling of uneasiness about the school is correct, because controlling access to the facility is essentially what security is about. In light of the student initiated violence of recent incidents, the need to strengthen access control with metal screening devices may be necessary to prevent students from carrying guns into schools.