August, 2026
At what point does staying the course in school safety become more about protecting a past decision than protecting students and staff?
Recently, I listened to Simon Sinek talk about a concept he calls “existential flexibility.” His message really got me thinking about school safety, security, and emergency preparedness.
Sinek talks about organizations having the ability to make a significant shift in direction when they recognize there is a better way to accomplish what they originally set out to do. What struck me was the reality that this can mean walking away from something an organization has already invested a tremendous amount of money, time, and energy into.
I think there is a real connection here to what we see in school safety. School districts are continually presented with new technologies, programs, security practices, training models, and other strategies promising to make schools safer. Some turn out to be great investments. Some don’t. Others may have been the right decision when they were implemented, but years later may no longer be the best direction for the district.
The problem is that changing direction isn’t always easy. By that point, the district may have invested significant money, trained hundreds or even thousands of employees, changed procedures, installed infrastructure, made public commitments, and spent years building a safety program around that decision. There can be a lot of pressure to keep going simply because of everything that has already been invested.
Effective school safety is much bigger than any one product or program. It involves people, relationships, training, supervision, emergency planning, communication, policies and procedures, appropriate technology, and strong collaboration with first responders and other community partners.
Maybe one of the questions school districts should periodically ask about their major safety investments is: If we were making this decision today, knowing what we know now, would we still make the same decision?
If the answer is yes, keep moving forward and continue making it better.
But what if the answer is no? Changing direction doesn’t automatically mean the original decision was a bad one. Circumstances change. Schools and communities change. Technology changes. We learn from experience. And sometimes we simply find a better way of doing something.
I think that is where school leadership becomes important. It can be difficult to walk away from something a district has invested heavily in, but continuing simply because of that investment may be an even more difficult decision to defend later. We shouldn’t become so invested in a school safety strategy that we become unwilling to ask whether it is still the right strategy.
A secured school perimeter is only effective when operational practices maintain its integrity. This case highlights how opening an unattended gate before dismissal can create serious school safety, security, and standard-of-care concerns.
