The context administrators are working with
School safety data in Ontario has been trending in a direction that makes this review more important, not less. Provincial figures show school boards reported 4,424 violent incidents in the 2023/24 school year, the most recent year with available data, a 77% increase since 2018. That’s not a one-year spike; the rate of violent incidents has risen in nearly every year since 2018-19, with the pandemic years as the notable exception.
A 2024 report from Ontario’s Auditor General dug further into the pattern and found that violent incidents at boards outside the Toronto District School Board rose 114% between 2017-18 and 2022-23, actually outpacing the increase at the TDSB itself, which rose 67% over the same period. In other words, this isn’t a big-city-only issue. Boards across the province, including smaller and mid-sized ones, are seeing the same upward trend, sometimes more steeply.
Surveys of front-line education workers echo the administrative data. A 2024 survey by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation found 75% of members had personally seen violence increase over the course of their careers, and a broader survey of more than 12,000 education workers found three out of four had experienced violent or disruptive incidents at work, with a third reporting they face them daily.
These numbers don’t point to a single fix, and no security system on its own resolves a complex, province-wide trend. But they do point clearly to the value of a layered approach: physical design, access control, and monitoring working together, rather than any one measure carrying the whole load on its own.
Where environmental design fits in
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, or CPTED, is a framework used by police services and security consultants across Canada, including Edmonton Police Service, which runs dedicated multi-day CPTED training courses for practitioners, and RCMP detachments that offer community CPTED evaluations for buildings and public spaces. Its core ideas: natural surveillance (sightlines that let people see and be seen), natural access control (guiding movement through a space deliberately), territorial reinforcement (making it visually clear what areas are supervised and cared for), and ongoing maintenance (because a well-kept space signals active oversight).
For a school campus, applying CPTED can mean something as simple as reviewing where sightlines are blocked by overgrown landscaping or poorly placed signage, or as involved as redesigning how visitors are funneled through a single, monitored entry point instead of multiple unsupervised side doors propped open for convenience.
What a pre-September review should cover
A thorough review, ideally completed before the first day of classes, should look at:
- Visitor entry points. Is there a single, monitored point of entry, or are there multiple unsecured doors that get propped open during arrival and dismissal times?
- Camera coverage. Do cameras cover entry points, hallways, and exterior grounds comprehensively, or are there known blind spots that staff have quietly worked around for years?
- Access credentials. Are staff, contractor, and after-hours access lists current, especially after summer staffing changes, renovations, or contractor work that may have left temporary access unrevoked?
- Emergency response integration. Does the monitoring system allow for rapid, verified escalation if something is flagged, with a real person confirming what’s happening?
- Communication with the monitoring provider. Does your provider have current emergency contacts, updated bell schedules, and awareness of any building changes from the summer?
Local expertise, applied at scale
This is the kind of review that benefits enormously from consultants who’ve done it before, at scale, specifically for institutional clients. Security ONE’s CPTED-trained Security Consultants have worked with clients including school boards and municipalities across Southern Ontario, bringing an understanding of how these buildings are actually used day to day, not just how they were originally designed on paper.
Centralized intelligence, custom design, certified professionals: the same expertise that protects federal assets, applied to a school campus, and applied before the first bell rings in September rather than after an incident forces the conversation.
Before the first bell rings, know where your gaps are. Request a complimentary CPTED-informed security review with a Security ONE consultant. We’ll assess entry points, sightlines, and access control against what your board actually needs this year. Â