Updated August 20, 2020
Alyssas Law named after Alyssa Alhadeff, a victim of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedy in February 14, 2018 was passed into law in New Jersey in February 2019 and requires all New Jersey public K-12 schools to be equipped with a panic alarm linked to local law enforcement.
Schools now have until September 14 to either obtain an Alyssa’s Law compliance certification or submit proposed work to comply through the compliance application. This is also to the deadline to request grant funding through the Securing Our Children’s Future Bond Act, which will provide $75 million in funds for school security upgrades in public schools.
Critical Considerations for Selecting a Panic Button Solution
To comply with Alyssas Law, New Jersey schools must have a silent panic button solution at least one in each building that is generated by the manual activation of a device and that is directly linked to local law enforcement authorities. The safety of your students and staff, however, goes beyond a matter of simply complying with the law. A stand-alone panic button, while valuable, will leave your schools exposed to significant risks. To reduce those risks, schools need to consider a panic button solution that:
- Enables all teachers and staff to quickly summon help for any type of situation from wherever they are on campus
- Allows for group messaging so all users, teachers, staff, incident commanders, and first responders, etc. can communicate during the crisis
- Is customizable to your districts emergency response protocols
- Is easy to implement and user-friendly
- Is part of an end-to-end emergency management system
Exceed the Law & Fully Protect Your Schools with an End-to-End System
Although Alyssas Law requires one panic alarm per building, one panic alarm is not enough. With Raptor Alert, every teacher and staff member will have access to the mobile panic solution, empowering them to silently initiate the alarm and expedite awareness and response to localized incidents and district- and school-wide emergency situations. With Raptor, every teacher and staff member can:
- Summon help immediately for any type of situation with a touch of a mobile button
- Instantly send alerts to a custom list of recipients, which can include administrators, staff members, and multiple first responder agencies
- Connect directly with 9-1-1 from their carrier-enabled device
- Communicate with all users in real-time through two-way group messaging across devices, including smartphones, tablets, Chromebooks, laptops, and desktop computers
- Ensure alignment with their districts emergency response protocols
- Request help for a localized incident such as a playground or sports injury, student fight, or an irate visitor that does not require first responder assistance
Raptor Alert is part of Raptor Emergency Management, which is an end-to-end emergency management system that integrates all phases of school safety preparation, response, and recovery to better protect students and staff who are in a situation where they need help immediately. Raptor Emergency Management empowers schools to:
- Summon help for any type of incident. Raptor Alert, as described above, enables teachers and staff to instantly alert others of any type of situation. From a student fight to a broken bone on the playground to a violent intruder in the halls, Raptor Alert empowers your school to better protect your students and staff in any situation.
- Ensure no school misses a drill. Raptor Drill Manager makes it easy for schools to schedule, conduct, and manage drills. The system sends automated notifications to remind schools of any upcoming drills, as well as alerts district admins if any schools are out of compliance. Schools can initiate drills directly from a web-enabled device or through Raptor Alert, immediately showing the active drill in a robust dashboard. A record of drill completion is automatically populated in real time within the district dashboard, and schools can easily produce complete and accurate status reports for individual schools or for the entire district with the click of a mouse.
- Account for students and staff and everyone on your campus including visitors, contractors and volunteers during an emergency. Raptor Accountability™ gives incident commanders and first responders clear, real-time line of sight to the location and status of every student and staff member within minutes of an incident initiation. Easy-to-read desktop and mobile dashboards update automatically as data comes in and the system records a timeline of events for each student for post-incident reporting purposes.
- Reunify students with approved guardians 4x faster. Raptor Reunification eliminates inaccuracy, reduces liability, and ensures students are only reunified with approved guardians. The system tracks every individuals status changes in real time, allowing schools to generate detailed history of events for each student and staff member. Raptor Reunification is 100% aligned with The I Love U GuysFoundation protocols.
The Power of a Single, Integrated System
Raptor Technologies an uncompromising ally to over 32,000 K-12 schools nationwide provides the only integrated school safety platform that empowers schools to keep unsafe individuals out, be prepared and know how respond to any emergency, and screen and approve volunteers.
Contact us to schedule a personalized demo and learn how Raptor can help you better protect your students and staff against any emergency.
