Centegix CEO Dr. Roderick Sams talks about creating more diverse (and accessible) school safety plans in new interview

A little over a year ago, I published an interview with Dr. Roderick Sams. A former Georgia teacher and school principal, Dr. Sams is the chief development officer at educational technology company Centegix. He joined the company in early 2022 in part to address his desire to integrate safety more deeply into schools. Centegix describes its mission as “creating safer spaces through technological innovation to empower and protect people,” and Dr. Sams told me he believes “the connection between school climate and safety is the nexus of what work is needed to promote better outcomes for teachers and students.” Much of our discussion focused on Centegix’s CrisisAlert system, which is a combination of hardware and software. The company has a video demonstrating Crisis Alert on its YouTube channel.

I recently reconnected with Dr. Sams to talk about the need to build inclusivity into school safety plans. Last October, Marianne Dhenin wrote a piece for Teen Vogue that reported on how active shooter drills ignore the needs of students and staff with disabilities. Anja Herrman, then a 17-year-old senior at a Chicago high school, uses a wheelchair and told Dhenin she feared she would be “left behind” in the event of a shooting. Dr. Sams said safety plans that include people like Herrman “support ensuring that equitable access to opportunities and resources is provided to those who might otherwise be marginalized.” While most school (and district) officials claim that safety is supposedly important for everyone, Dr. Sams said the reality is that “key elements” like students’ social-emotional and physical well-being “are not meaningfully addressed in too many school safety plans.” He added that a properly inclusive plan “takes into account the individual needs and abilities of everyone when and if the school faces an emergency.”

What exactly constitutes inclusive safety plans? According to Dr. Sams, they include “elements that ensure that the needs of all students are not simply considered, but met during a crisis or emergency.” To do this, he said, they should take into account people’s varying needs and tolerances in terms of abilities, as well as be multimodal in terms of delivering critical notifications that are presented in different languages ​​using “culturally sensitive phrases.” More importantly, Dr. Sams said, safety plans need to be created and developed by a diverse group of decision-makers, adding that diversity can play a central role in “considering different roles, responsibilities, and insights into what inclusiveness means and how it should be presented in the plan.” And of course, communication is paramount in emergencies; safety plans must “include a communication plan to ensure that information is delivered in a timely, consistent, and accurate manner.”

Of course, technology plays an integral role in creating and executing security plans. Dr. Sams noted that there has been a “significant increase” in the number of schools and districts that are harnessing the power of technology for security purposes, telling me that this includes devices like entry control systems, remote locks, and video surveillance. There are other measures as well: AI-assisted weapon detection, emergency response and restraint systems, and more. Dr. Sams emphasized that his company can be an asset, saying that the Centegix platform “empowers staff to request assistance in emergencies, from everyday emergencies to the most extreme crises.” He added that its interoperability allows Centegix to be “a critical layer of the security ecosystem that schools need to make their security plans as effective as possible.”

“Location, communication and response are paramount when every second counts,” Dr. Sams said of what makes the best-designed safety plans. “It’s not just our motto—it’s what we believe in and what we stand for.”

My return to Dr. Sams is timely. It coincides with news earlier this week from Centegix about the results of a study she commissioned that found that school safety “impacts student achievement, classroom time, and teacher retention.” Interestingly, Centegix wrote that 80% of K–12 teachers “regularly think about their own physical safety at work,” while 84% say safety has a “direct impact” on academic achievement.

Dr. Sams said communities are constantly asking for schools to be safer environments for their children, noting that inclusiveness is “a significant part of their request.” He added that challenges remain in testing the results and getting the information needed to determine the effectiveness of the plans. Centegix, Dr. Sams said, hears a consistent refrain that “safer schools are better schools.” That’s an ideal, he told me, that every community — and company — desires. Learning is made harder when people feel unsafe.

“Because schools are stretched thin in terms of resources, and in many cases, those resources are challenged, the willingness to consider partnering directly with parents or parent organizations has become critical to an inclusive school safety plan,” said Dr. Sams. “Parents are often the biggest advocates for inclusive safety planning, and their input can ensure that all student needs are addressed. School districts that want parent involvement are using their collective voice and support to advocate for everything from additional safety resources to communicating the effectiveness of the plan. More and more of these things are starting to happen primarily because of need, but also simply because more people who are advocates are involved in the process.”

Looking ahead, Dr. Sams told me that school districts should prioritize better representation “across the board” to improve their safety protocols. He pointed to people with disabilities as an example, telling me that it’s essential to ensure that part of the planning process includes people who are in the proverbial trenches of special education classrooms every day. That, he said, helps ensure that “their voices are heard and contributes to how the plan is developed.” Elsewhere, Dr. Sams mentioned that there’s been far less attention paid to how safety concerns affect student academic achievement. As schools increasingly strive to make the teacher-student dynamic more vibrant, Dr. Sams said safety plays a key role in shaping that relationship. In the end, seeking richer representation in safety plans is key, he said.

“Make sure there is representation at the table,” Dr. Sams said. “Safety staff will likely drive a lot of the conversations, but it shouldn’t be done in isolation. It should be done in partnership with stakeholders, who ultimately should have a voice in making the safety plan as inclusive as possible. (We need to make sure) that all students, in all situations, are considered when developing plans where safety is what’s being achieved.”