A great school security team works hand-in-glove with the rest of your community. You can count on them to greet students, staff, and parents cheerfully each morning while being prepared for any security eventuality.

Does this sound like your security team? It’s okay if it doesn’t. Here are five things that will probably ring true if your security team is...underwhelming.


  1. You can never get in contact with them- Maybe you need them to open a gate. Perhaps you’re concerned about something on your campus and would like your security team to check it out. And yet, it seems to take three or four attempts every single time to manage to reach a guard and let them know what you need. It’s unacceptable but an all-too-common concern for schools across the country.
  2. You can never get in contact with...their boss- If a guard fails to show up to their shift on time, there goes your morning! Now it’s devoted to trying to get in contact with someone who cares about your problem. If you can manage to make that happen, good luck finding someone who can solve it. You’ll be passed around from supervisor to manager and back again, but never manage to meet someone who can take care of what you need. Large security companies often struggle to recruit and maintain quality employees. Unfortunately, they combine that dearth of strong employees with a me-first attitude that will drive you up a wall.
  3. They don’t understand your school’s culture- Perhaps you’re a small school, where everyone knows each other and takes pleasure in that fact. When we work with our partner schools, one of the most critical (and in our opinion, excellent) elements of our program is that the needed changes we bring to schools are smoothly integrated into the existing culture. Even if it's as simple as guards knowing the school's mascot, it can make all the difference in the world.
  4. They’re on their phones all day-We get it. Phones are the siren songs of the modern world, distracting us from the things we need to get done with endlessly refreshing content. It took me longer than it should have to write this article because I kept checking my phone. However, it is profoundly inappropriate for security officers to be on their phone while they are on duty. If your security team continues to be plugged in when they should be patrolling, even after multiple reprimands and reminders, you know you’ve got a subpar security provider.
  5. They can’t get the job done- In our professional opinion, a security team serves one of the most crucial functions in school safety. Observing and reporting on what is occurring on your campus is the backbone of security. However...it’s not necessarily the most complex of positions. If your security team is constantly coming up with excuses, workarounds, or just blowing you off on tasks you need them to complete, even though they have all the equipment they need, it’s time to admit you have a crappy security team.

Despite the generally lighthearted tone of this article, we all know that a focused and capable security team is more important than ever for schools. There are a variety of strategies you can implement in the pursuit of the best possible school security for your campus. Check out some of our other articles regarding school security below, and head to our school security main page to learn more about how Joffe manages to connect schools with excellent guards that have none of the aforementioned qualities every day.

Signs of an Unsafe School

Ways to Immediately Improve School Safety

Balancing School Safety and Daily Operations