Dive Brief:
- With students returning to class, K-12 facility managers should test their school’s communication systems to ensure they work in case of emergency, school technology leaders and vendors say.
- Schools sent almost 20 million notifications last year, with 8% of them for emergencies, according to a report by Singlewire, which analyzed communications from approximately 16,000 schools using its InformaCast platform over the 2025-2026 school year. The most prepared schools use a range of communication methods, including on-premise devices like speakers and displays, as well as email, mobile app alerts and texts, the company says.
- The sheer volume of everyday communications gives facilities managers a way to test that their system is prepared for emergencies, Singlewire says in its report. “The backbone of school communication lives in the routine, but that routine builds confidence,” the company says. “It’s not about rising to the occasional to tackle an emergency head-on, it’s about falling back on established infrastructure that has become second nature.”
Dive Insight:
Schools in the U.S. spend more than $4 billion annually on physical safety measures like metal detectors, surveillance cameras and weapons detection systems, according to market research firm Omdia.
Insufficient staff and inadequate physical security are creating vulnerabilities in school facilities that technology can help fill, but only to a point. Operators must be thoughtful about outcomes when deploying technology, experts at the Learning Policy Institute say.
While some of these technologies, like surveillance cameras, appear to offer simple, tangible solutions, there is mounting evidence that these investments in some cases pose potential harms to school communities, Jennifer DePaoli, senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute, wrote in a blog post.
“Overwhelmingly, [evidence] indicates that the best way to keep students safe in schools is not just to attend to students’ physical safety, but to ensure their psychological sense of safety as well,” DePaoli said.
Monitoring students using surveillance cameras, for example, can make students feel vulnerable rather than protected, she said.
When it comes to emergency communications, by aligning drills with potential incidents like lockdowns or extreme weather, and planning for predictable high-pressure times like mornings or the start of the year, school leaders can have a better understanding of how to handle these situations, minimizing stress and mistakes, Singlewire says.
The Standard Response Protocol, or SRP, by The “I Love U Guys” Foundation, gives schools a shared, plain-language vocabulary for five safety actions — hold, secure, lockdown, evacuate and shelter — that thousands of schools and districts are using. A shared response vocabulary works best when it’s exercised consistently, so evaluating communications during drills is a useful starting point for determining how well they’re working, per the report.
Some schools are using visual emergency response platforms that combine detection sensors, cameras, specialized communication software, mobile alerts and color-coded lighting to notify students, teachers, staff and visitors across a range of devices and streamline directions in case of emergency, like Go to Green, which has gained attention following an investment from Kevin O’Leary.
Regardless of the technology they use, daily communications gives school leaders a way to test their systems as safety infrastructure to ensure security and emergency systems work as intended, says Singlewire. The company noted that the system used for bells and announcements is the same one that a school will lean on in a crisis.
Behind on-premise devices like speakers, phones and displays, the most-used communication channel is email, used by 76.7% of schools, followed by mobile app push at 57% and SMS at 53%, according to Singlewire’s data. The schools that communicate the best build in redundancy, using several channels at once and pairing in-building systems that reach everyone in the building with “digital means that follow people out the door,” the company says.
Facility leaders should also work with IT colleagues to confirm that security and communication systems have the digital infrastructure, like high-speed connectivity, to support them and integrate into the broader ecosystem, according to Keith Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking.
High-speed connectivity is required to run modern, critical school operations including security systems and student information systems, he told Facilities Dive.
“It’s so critical in terms of understanding. [You may think] well, I’m in facilities, my responsibility is doors and locks and security cameras, [while] not recognizing that this is an integral part of the school network,” Krueger said. “They’re not independent things, but [rather] all interdependent.”
