A teacher friend of mine used to say during the pandemic, “We can do hard things,” whenever she was faced with yet another new directive on how to teach beginning band students how to play an instrument — remotely.

September always makes me think of teachers like my friend, and students like my three sons. But this year, for the first time in 20 years, I no longer have a student in elementary, middle, or high school. I can ignore the back-to-school Facebook countdown from my kids’ former school district, and the only “back-to-school” shopping I need to do is send my youngest with a credit card to get a few essentials for his dorm. (We still have two weeks left before he moves in, so what’s the rush?)

Yet, I admit, I do feel a little sad at my looming empty nest and the final door closing on that chapter of my life. Change can be hard.

I’m not completely out of the secondary school loop, though, since my oldest son will be going into his second year of teaching second grade. And while, thankfully, he doesn’t have to worry about teaching beginning readers how to sound out sentences over Zoom, he does have to think about something that all teachers now worry about across the country: potential violence, particularly gun violence.

It is no longer just schools, either. As I write this, there was just a recent shooting at an office building in New York City; an attempted shooting that was foiled in a church parking lot; and probably dozens more incidents that I don’t know about because they no longer make the national news unless they are in prevalent locations, or, tragically, successful.

Here’s the thing about change, though: it may be hard at first, but, very often, change means growth.

As I began researching and writing this month’s cover story on active shooter solutions, one of the things that really got my attention when talking with experts was the idea that schools and other organizations that have “active shooter drills” may also be inadvertently informing a future shooter about how to circumvent some of those very same security and safety efforts. As Alarm.com’s James Reno says, “It’s hard to plan against someone who already knows your response plan.”

I had a lot of questions for providers of technologies, as well as the security integrators who implement those solutions, beginning with: where do you even start? Integrator Mike Harrison of WDS advises integrators to proceed cautiously when it comes to learning how to sell and implement active shooter solutions. “Active shooter solutions are not just another product line — they involve tremendous liability, require deep expertise, and come with risks many integrators underestimate,” he says. “Everything from insurance costs to messaging risk from sales teams to improper integration or response protocols can create real-world consequences. This isn’t an area where you can afford to ‘learn as you go.’ It has taken us years of focused effort to build the right processes, partnerships, and specialized knowledge to do this work properly — and we still approach every project with humility and discipline.”

Here’s the thing about change, though: it may be hard at first, but, very often, change means growth. My friend who navigated the pandemic as a teacher learned new skills and grew closer to some of her fellow teachers, overcoming those challenges together. My sons may be leaving the nest, but it is for amazing new adventures and life experiences. My friends who have already gone through this empty nest process assure me it is ultimately a happy change (though they still miss their adult kids).

And for security integrators, learning to incorporate active shooter consulting, training, and sensors into many more conversations will hopefully save many more lives.