Case Study
Modernizing Security on a 20-Building Open School Campus in Greater Boston
How a multi-building independent school with no perimeter fencing moved from a single security assessment to a multi-year, phased security program, covering access control, video surveillance, mass notification, and ongoing leadership support.
Client
Independent PreK–8 School, Greater Boston
Prepared by
Andre Watson
Date
September 2026
A mid-sized independent day school (PreK–8) in the Greater Boston area, spread across roughly 20 buildings on an open, multi-acre campus with no perimeter fencing. Identifying details have been withheld at the client's request; this case study describes the engagement in general terms.
20
buildings brought onto one access-control system
200
staff trained annually in the consultant’s prior role as a Director of Campus Safety
4
vendor systems coordinated — access, video, alarm, notification
Multi-year
engagement, from assessment through leadership transition
The Problem: Security Gaps on an Open Independent School Campus
An initial campus-wide security assessment found what's common on older, open independent-school campuses that have grown building by building over decades: a security posture built for a much smaller, simpler footprint than the one the school had actually become.
An open, porous layout that allowed an unauthorized person to go unnoticed for an extended period, or for an entire visit.
A visitor policy that existed on paper but lacked clarity on who could actually approve access.
Staff badges that existed but weren't consistently worn and had no photo, making staff hard to distinguish from visitors.
Lockdown drills that hadn't run in several years, despite a written policy requiring them.
A hard-key system rather than badge access in most buildings, and several staff couldn’t produce their assigned key.
No secondary off-site evacuation location if the primary assembly area was also compromised.
No vehicle or license-plate registration process to identify unauthorized vehicles.
The Solution: A Multi-Year, Phased Security Program
Rather than a one-time report, this became a multi-year advisory engagement: Secure Response Strategies moved the school from assessment findings to implemented, campus-wide systems, then stayed on as an embedded advisor through the school's next security leadership transition.
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A prioritized remediation plan that separated immediate, low-cost fixes from longer-term capital projects, so the school wasn't asked to solve everything on day one.
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Campus-wide access control modernization — coordinating the transition from a hard-key system to card/badge readers and monitored door position switches across roughly 20 buildings.
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Campus-wide video surveillance coverage, planned and mapped building by building alongside the access control rollout.
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Vendor coordination and technical liaison work across multiple security vendors and systems — access control, video, alarm monitoring, and a wearable panic-button mass-notification system — including onboarding and go-live coordination for the notification system, and acting as a point of contact between the school and its technology vendors.
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Facial recognition configuration guidance for the school's camera system, including written guidance on data handling and FERPA-consistent privacy practices, and recommended controls for alerts and administrative access.
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A written Missing Student policy — prevention, reporting, on- and off-campus search procedures, parent notification, and after-incident review — replacing an informal response with a documented one.
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Ongoing retainer support onboarding the school's newly hired Security Director, including monthly strategic and technical guidance during the leadership transition.
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Hard-key access, building by building
Card/badge readers + monitored door switches, ~20 buildings
Why This Approach Worked: Experience Behind the Engagement
This is the kind of engagement where continuity matters as much as any single recommendation, and a few things from my background shaped how it played out over multiple years:
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I had previously served as this type of school's own Director of Campus Safety, running annual active-assailant training for a staff of roughly 200 — so the recommendations reflected how a school security program actually operates day to day, not just what an outside consultant would suggest on a single visit.
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A physical security and technology background (including ASIS Physical Security Professional and Associate Protection Professional credentials) meant I could sit at the table with access control, video, and alarm vendors as a technically credible liaison for the school, rather than the school having to manage each vendor relationship on its own.
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Because the relationship continued past the initial assessment, recommendations could be sequenced realistically across budget cycles instead of delivered as a single overwhelming list, and the school had a consistent advisor across a change in its own security leadership.
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Emergency medical and law enforcement experience informed the Missing Student policy and the facial-recognition privacy guidance, both of which needed to hold up not just operationally but under real regulatory and child-safety scrutiny.
A few things from my background shaped how this engagement played out over multiple years:
Outcome: From Open Findings to an Implemented Security Program
Over the course of the engagement, the campus moved from an assessment full of open
findings to:
- Implemented access control and video coverage across its buildings
- A functioning mass-notification system
- Documented emergency policy where none existed
- Continuity of security leadership through a staff transition
All of this was coordinated through a single ongoing advisory relationship rather than
a series of disconnected vendor projects.
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