Camden Dalrymple named 2024 SIA School Safety Advocate Award winner

SILVER SPRING, Md.—The Security Industry Association (SIA) has recognized Camden Dalrymple as the 2024 winner of the SIA School Safety Advocate Award.

This award is presented to individuals that have demonstrated extraordinary leadership in advancing legislation, standards, public policies, or other initiatives that encourage the effective use of technology solutions and procedures to enhance school security and safety.

Dalrymple is a 10th-grade student at Montgomery High School in Montgomery, Pa., and the student manager for the Montgomery Area School District’s broadcasting program.

In his first solo project with the broadcasting program, Dalrymple served as creative director, copywriter, and video for a “Stop the Prop” public service announcement video created to bring further awareness to school safety. The Stop the Prop campaign empowers students, school employees and visitors to help keep schools safer by following a simple step: not propping open doors and closing doors they see propped open.

“SIA commends Camden Dalrymple on his hard work in work in promoting policies which strive to ensure that schools are a safe place for all students and staff,” said SIA Associate Director of Government Relations Colby Williams. “While we remain committed to working alongside our member companies and allied organizations to enhance the safety and security of our schools, it’s been rewarding to see students like Camden use their platforms to advocate for policies that can be taken from within their own school - even something that sounds as simple as ‘stop the prop’ and locking doors will save lives. As a former high school teacher myself who is passionate about this issue, I was proud to see Camden’s efforts to promote the ‘Stop the Prop’ campaign, and he is more than deserving of being recognized with SIA’s School Safety Advocate Award.”

SIA is dedicated to working to enhance the safety and security of schools in the United States through supporting increased federal assistance to schools struggling with the cost of meeting security needs and the adoption of similar state assistance programs, as well as promoting nationwide use of best practices for school security, which include policies that address keeping certain doors shut and locked as appropriate. Learn more about SIA’s advocacy efforts here.

The SIA School Safety Advocate Award was presented at a special award ceremony during GovSummit, SIA’s government security conference, which took place May 21-22 in downtown Washington, D.C.