Six Weekends Until Football: Planning Ahead for Effective Event Management

It may be summer for students, but the time after the end of a school year is the moment when K-12 administrators and educators can start planning for the next one. In fact, school districts across the county are already assessing what’s needed to make operations more efficient and ensure school safety plans are in place.  

In Illinois, for example, the football season kicks off in six weeks, a regular cadence of sporting events that requires careful planning and event management software.  

This means that school administrators should be actively thinking about not only the challenges associated with an influx of additional visitors in the fall, but also the safety software solutions that come with hosting events including high school sports.  

Simply put, event management for schools is an integral part of health and safety protocols, even more so in a world where unpredictable incidents – including those that involve violence - seem to happen with increasing regularity. 

With that in mind, and with the clock ticking down until the after-school sports schedule takes over the lives of athletes, coaches, parents, school administrators and the local community, here are a few things to know about the benefits of event management software in K-12 education.  

Safety At After-School Events

According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, the number of school shooting incidents, victims and deaths have increased significantly in the last six years. Every state has experienced a school shooting, the database said, with almost 3,000 incidents recorded since 1965.  

This number includes more than 850 deaths, and 2,385 wounded victims, with most of these incidents occurring in the parking lot or inside the school buildings. However, incidents at after-school events are a concern. 

Between 2018 and 2023, for instance, reported incidents of violence at high school sporting events increased by 33 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), with the consensus among school safety experts being that the problem will continue to trend upwards. 

A recent NCES survey revealed that school administrators are concerned about the potential for violence at after-school events. More than 96 percent of respondents said that it was a top priority for them, citing the fact that a situation will always escalate if one individual involved has a gun. A shooting at Choctaw High School in August 2023 during the third quarter of a football game against a local rival, for instance, was a direct result of an argument between two men that quickly spun out of control. 

Our recent blog – Safety at Games and After-School Events: What Administrators Need to Know – cited the Choctaw event as one reason why school event management software needs to be at the top of its game. You can read the blog post here.   

Choosing The Right K-12 Event Management Solution

Taking the above into account, schools should take stock of the challenges they face when managing events and the importance of choosing the right K-12 event management tool.  

There is little doubt that schools of all sizes can face significant challenges when it comes to event management. We all know that college sports are both incredibly popular and played in stadiums that are designed to entertain tens of thousands of fans during the season, meaning their  health and safety event solutions are more likely to be akin to the same ones used by teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.

K-12 schools, however, do not have facilities with those capabilities and are limited by resources including staffing, time, and budget for event management software.  

Throw into the mix the need for volunteers as opposed to professionally trained staff and the logistics can seem overwhelming.  

Challenges aside, school events like football and other sports are often seen as critical to the broader mission of educators and administrators. These events foster community within the student body and bring the community together. Effectively hosting events is essential to a school’s mission.  

The challenge, therefore, is to integrate event management services or tools that tick all the right boxes at the right time, including ease-of-use, flexibility, and interoperability with other systems or physical hardware.  

Spoiler alert: Kokomo24/7®’s holistic health and safety platform is that solution. 

How Kokomo24/7® Helps Schools Manage Events Safely

Kokomo24/7® simplifies health and safety processes at live sports events for K-12 schools of all sizes. When you consider all the safety aspects that an event such as a football game can involve, knowing that an event management system has been designed to cover all the bases can alleviate concern and ensure attendees have a positive experience … as long as their chosen team wins.

Kokomo24/7®’s Visitor Management System Plus (VMS+) provides school administrators with a holistic event management solution that can welcome, screen and manage attendees. 

Kokomo24/7®’s easy-to-use offering gives schools reassurance and safety during sporting events and other school-sanctioned activities. 

• Use the Kokomo24/7® platform for access control, pre-registration, event ticketing, attendee notifications, and more
• Utilize portable kiosks and other hardware to build a streamlined check-in process for your events 

Kokomo24/7® makes it simple to welcome and control access for all event attendees. 

• Integrate with SIS to restrict suspended students
• Easily blacklist restricted persons using custom lists
• Scan IDs for security  

Kokomo24/7® saves schools time before and during the event. 

• Provide tickets to attendees
• Enable pre-registration to save time at the door

Plus, Kokomo24/7®’s event management solution is available in a safety bundle with our visitor management system, panic button system, behavioral threat assessments, and more. 

See for yourself why schools choose the Kokomo24/7® platform to manage safety:

• Reduce costs: schools have saved over 60% after switching to Kokomo24/7®
• Consolidate vendors: Schools consolidate an average of 3.4 vendors within the first 3 years of using Kokomo24/7®
• Trusted and proven: Kokomo24/7® is trusted by thousands of schools across the country 

The National Federation of State High School Associations has called school athletics “an extension of the classroom” and the “other half of education,” stressing that the teamwork and character development that K-12 athletes gain from competitive sports encourages community buy-in and a shared sense of identity.  

While K-12 event management might not have the exact same logistical headaches as working for a professional sports franchise, a school’s duty to its athletes, parents, staff, and community members in attendance is very much in the same ballpark.

About Kokomo24/7®

Since 2018, Kokomo24/7®’s unique configuration-based platform has helped more than 120 leading national and global organizations respond quickly to complex business and operational challenges. The Kokomo24/7® platform continues to evolve to efficiently meet the unique needs of every organization in the areas of health and safety, wellness, communications, compliance, accountability, and incident management.

Kokomo24/7®’s event management software is a trusted and proven solution - reach out before fall and book your K-12 demo today!