Over the years, school security has been forced to evolve to meet the ever-changing threats facing our schools today. It has moved from a soft approach to high tech, more hardened security solutions to keep students, faculty, and staff in our schools safe. There have been incidents on school campuses throughout history; however, the shootings at Columbine, Red Lake, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, to name a few, have changed how we as security professionals analyze and approach school security. We are always learning and improving our security management after an incident in an effort to stay in front of the latest trends.

With this book, Larry Fennelly and Marianna Perry are delivering much needed, high-quality, safety and security advice that is feasible as well as practical, for K-12 schools. Both Larry and Marianna, along with their contributing authors, are among the most respected names in the security industry today, and they propose a holistic, all encompassing approach to security to keep our schools safe. We as security professionals must lead the way to help prevent more incidents from occurring in our schools. In order to do this, we are forced to change the way we think about school security and move away from traditional approaches that unfortunately, in most cases, are no longer effective.

School administrators and security professionals alike will benefit greatly from the information in this book. The book contains several international chapters, whose problems as well as solutions are the very same as ours. From the first chapter to the last this is a must read.

Chris Hertig, CPP, said about the announcement of this book on Linkedin, “A Comprehensive Foundation and Forward-Leaning book on this is needed,” and I agree.

Linda Watson, CPP, CSC, CHS-V, Whirlaway Group, LLC, Independent Security Consultant, Chairperson, ASIS International School Safety and Security Council, Member, International Association of Professional Security Consultants