The technology of revolutionary school safety is changing the way first responders plan and react to campus emergencies and offers them unprecedented real-time intelligence in the form of a glass ball to view emergencies. Those advanced technologies are combined with artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and real-time communication to deliver essential information to law enforcers, fire and medical forces, even before they reach the crime scene.
Alyssa Law: In Washington, there is widespread safety technology
According to King5, students returning to Washington schools might experience some of the new technological tools that are intended to keep campuses safer. Under a law enacted by legislators earlier this year known as the Alyssa law, districts must install safety devices and emergency response plans in the presence of police.
Districts have until Oct. 1 to report to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction the specifics of their emergency plans and which devices they have on campus. There are several ways that districts can enhance security levels on campus: by issuing panic buttons or cell phones to all workers, by installing keyless door locks with remote controls, or a video camera.
The mobile apps make it possible to communicate emergencies instantaneously
Snohomish County installed the Motorola-based application known as Rave on every employee of the Marysville School District, allowing teachers and administrators to send notices to others and call emergency services directly from their phones when a shooting, fire, or medical emergency occurred. Most of the staff at Marysville-Pilchuk High School, where four students were shot dead in 2014, downloaded the optional app.
Principal Pete Apple said that, in all the schools he attended, there was always the buy-in of staff on safety. We understand that our No. 1 priority is safety and a positive learning environment, and everyone must be oriented towards that.
Modern surveillance systems can offer real-time intelligence
Tumwater schools have placed high-definition, controllable cameras around their campuses that can monitor movement and be checked remotely by school administrators and police. These systems are a great step forward in the delivery of situational critical awareness to first responders before arrival at the scene.
“I’m able to move in, if I need to. I can move the camera left to right,” said Heidi Center-Howden, the head of Michael T. Simmons Elementary, as she demonstrated how the camera functions and demonstrated how the technology can be used to send real-time information to responding teams in case of an emergency.
Technology provides predictive benefits to emergency response
The law is named after Alyssa Alhadeff, a victim of a 14-year-old school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Lori Alhadeff, the mother of Alyssa, believes that panic alarms would have saved her daughter and is trying to get the same laws passed in the rest of the country. In Olympia, schools now see it necessary to have visitors at every school, who are cleared through a locked vestibule where they can first be processed at the main office, which will provide an added level of security and information gathering, which could be used in case of an emergency.
Marysville-Pilchuck English teacher and yearbook advisor Nicole Burns said the app technology makes her feel safer. “It’s great for peace of mind. Being in the loop and knowing what any particular situation is, said Burns, is how these technologies help both staff and emergency responders.
New school safety technology is completely transforming emergency response by granting first responders predictive intelligence and real-time situational awareness. These innovations are turning colleges into safer places to learn and provide emergency responders with the vital information needed to act more successfully in case of campus crises through extensive systems of mobile alert-notifying applications, highly sophisticated surveillance cameras, and built-in communication systems.