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As They Return to Their Classrooms, More Than 10 Percent of Teachers Say Their School Is Not Prepared to Help Protect Students

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 08:00 CDT

BOCA RATON, Fla., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- With over 53 million students going back to school, a national survey released today shows that more than one out of ten teachers believe their school is unprepared to protect kids. The results are part of the second annual ADT Back-to-School Survey conducted by Zogby International.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090303/LA78154LOGO-b )

Asked for reasons to explain how they felt, four in ten of those teachers said their school was not doing enough to help protect students, while three in 10 said they believed their school is vulnerable to an attack by outside predators. Other frequently mentioned concerns included:

• Worry that students would bring a weapon onto the campus - 24 percent
• Students being involved with street gangs - 12 percent
• Worry about violence happening in other schools - 12 percent
• Not enough awareness of dangers to students on campus -10 percent
  

According to Patrick Fiel, public safety advisor for ADT Security Services, campus violence is a national concern for teachers in both rural and urban areas.

"As shown by the recent murder of a beloved high school football coach at a small town in Iowa or an assault by a student on a Philadelphia teacher, school violence is truly a national problem that affects all school districts," Fiel said. "One of the keys to success is creating a dialogue between parents, teachers and administrators to create solutions for this growing problem."

Overall, three in four of the teachers surveyed said their schools were at least somewhat prepared to protect students on the campus.

More than half of those teachers said their school has an awareness of potential dangers and security measures in place to handle them. Asked what security measures their campuses employ, the teachers most frequently mentioned:

• Visitor check-in - 90 percent
• Visitor identification badges - 80 percent
• Video cameras - 57 percent
• Police officers on campus - 32 percent
• Alarmed doors - 32 percent
• Security guards on campus - 28 percent
• Computerized visitor identification systems - 12 percent
  

"When I travel around the country and talk with teachers, they consistently tell me about how much they welcome additional security planning and technology," Fiel said.

Mary Liz Singleton, who has more than 30 years of experience as a teacher and principal in Texas and Tennessee, said she always made the safety of her students a top priority. That led to one of her high schools being named the safest in her Texas region.

"When it came to the safety of my students, if I had a choice in my budget for another vice principal or cameras throughout my campus, I'd chose the technology," she said. "Teachers can't teach and students can't learn if they are not in a safe environment."

The ADT Back-to-School survey of 400 K-12 teachers was conducted by telephone between July 29 and 31 of this year. The margin of error was +/- five percent.

ADT helps to protect more than 15,000 K-12 schools and more than 1,300 colleges and universities in North America.

About ADT Security Services

ADT Security Services is a unit of Tyco International and part of ADT Worldwide, the world's largest electronic security provider. In North America, ADT provides electronic security services to nearly five million commercial, government and residential customers. ADT's total security solutions include intrusion, fire protection, video systems, access control, critical condition monitoring, home health services, electronic article surveillance, radio frequency identification (RFID) and integrated systems. ADT's government and commercial customers include a majority of the nation's Fortune 500 companies, all U.S. federal courthouses and over 70 mid to large airports. Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, ADT has more than 24,000 employees at approximately 240 locations in the U.S. and Canada. More ADT information is at http://www.adt.com/.

SOURCE ADT Security Services

Source: PR Newswire

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