Phoenix School Enhances Campus Security & Saves Money w/ Prefab Booths

With security concerns on the rise at urban and rural schools, along with increasing budget constraints, some school administrators have turned to prefab ticket and guard booths to achieve campus security on a shoestring. Mobile booths help them achieve a welcoming atmosphere that instills confidence in the student body and visitors, a secure facility for admissions receipts and concession sales, a safe and secure working environment for employees, as well as crime prevention through deterrence.

Los Angeles, CA. – June 14, 2010 – Guard booths strategically placed on campuses have created an atmosphere that instills confidence in personal safety for the student body, and the guard booths designed by B.I.G. Enterprises (www.bigbooth.com), serve as an interface for visitors while providing necessary campus security.

At a time when educational budgets in both the state and local school districts are stretched to the limit and with school shootings and gang violence on the rise in both urban and rural communities across the nation, school administrators are taking preventive measures and getting creative when it comes to campus security.

Marty Hoeffel, Principal of Alhambra High School in Phoenix, Arizona, worked for five years to find a solution for his school’s overall security and event management dilemmas. Their guard booth that checked in visitors to the parking lot during home games was more like a Navajo sweat lodge in the hot afternoon sun on game days. Their ticket booth that had to secure admission receipts and concession sales at major sporting events was secured with a hook-and-eye latch.

“On an interpersonal level, it is tough to always be nice when it is 110º in the booth,” Hoeffel said. “You are stranded for a four-hour shift on small a concrete island in sea of asphalt. Now our employees have a better working environment and as a result, are more pleasant. Not only are they our first line of defense, but they are also providing our guests with their first experience of hospitality and safety. This helps them do their jobs.”

The booths are equipped with electrical systems, including provisions for data, communication and security camera systems, stainless steel shelves, and a high output commercial HVAC. Thus booths contribute to the safety and well being of the staff as well. The booths are also flexible in that they can be moved should the need arise.

A further benefit of well-defined publicly accessible guard booths is that of crime prevention through deterrence. “These booths allow us to put on a public face,” said one recent manager. “In addition to public information, I believe that our human presence in the booth serves as a deterrent to would-be criminals—who might otherwise be scoping out our parking lot and thinking bad thoughts about what they might do there if they knew they were not being watched.”