This article by Greg Thompson originally appeared on The News-Enterprise. To view the original article, click here.
Elizabethtown Independent Schools is rolling out safety upgrades through a COPS Grant to keep students protected.
A $334,000 federal grant was paired with a little more than $100,000 in local funds.
“Late spring, through right now is when we’ve started implementing some of what we’re able to purchase with the grant money,” said Travis Gay, director of student services for the district.“ All of it is earmarked and dedicated toward school safety.”
A bullet-resistant, smash-resistant glass laminate purchased from Safe Haven Defense was being installed Monday over windows of schools in the district.
The film, Gay said, keeps windows from crumbling and falling out because of something such as a rock being thrown or a perpetrator trying to gain access inside a school through a window.
The protective covering allows first responders additional time to arrive on scene.
For two years the district has used Raptor Technologies for allowing and monitoring visitors inside schools, which has become common across the commonwealth.
Raptor Alert recently was added. Every staff member has an app on their phone allowing them to initiate a lockdown in the situation of an emergency, such as an active aggressor, Gay said.
This technology expedites emergency response by allowing users to initiate an alert directly through 911 providing critical information to first responders, law enforcement and district personnel.
“It also has student accountability,” Gay said. “The old school days of taking your roster and pencil and paper are done. You can mark your rosters in real-time through this system.”
Gay believes EIS will be the first in the state to implement the Raptor Badge Alert, a new layer of protection for students and staff.
Every staff member will wear a badge with a button. Should the button be pressed it will initiate a hard lockdown. Everyone will receive a notification through their cell phones and desktop computers, and it will activate the system to make a direct call to 911.
“Now if a bad guy shows up at the front door and wants to get through, he’s going to have a harder time, almost impossible time getting through,” Gay said. “We can initiate a faster response.”
The alert system also will be pivotal for reunification with parents and guardians should students be evacuated off-campus.
Along with those upgrades, more than $100,000 in security cameras have been added inside and outside of schools.
Among other purchases out of the grant funding comes bus equipment from the company Zonar.
Over the years, before leaving the compound, EIS bus drivers would walk around their dedicated bus with a checklist and a pencil completing an inspection.
Gay said the Zonar system is an electronic way of scanning specific zones on the bus and in the bus with a tablet making sure the bus is safe and ready to leave the lot.
“We now have GPS tracking on all of our buses, which we didn’t have before,” Gay said, adding the feature is another component offered through Zonar.
Through an app parents can download, they will be able to see where their student is in real-time and set an alert letting them know when the bus is getting close, which means parents can get to the bus stop on time and it will reduce parent calls asking where a particular bus is on its route.
“In the event something is delayed or something has gone wrong, we are able to direct message,” Gay said.
Another feature implemented with Zonar is each student will be issued an RFID card they will scan on a Z Pass reader inside the bus door as they board and when they exit. This feature captures the date, time and location of each scan, transmitting the information to a secure database.
“In the event of the worse case scenario, an accident, or even down to did my kid get on the bus,” Gay said, “we will know, in real-time who is on that bus, when they got on, when they got off.”
It’s important to be aware the app and the Z Pass components will be rolled out on a limited basis. Only a portion of parents and students will have access at the beginning of the school year.
“We don’t want to just push that out to 1,300 kids that ride the bus and families,” Gay said. “We’re going to make sure all the kinks are out. We’re going to take our time.”
Then it will be implemented districtwide once operations and logistics are finalized.
Buses also have been outfitted with new FirstNet radio technology replacing an antiquated CB style of system. FirstNet is connected to the first responders network so if cell phone usage is unavailable, buses still will be able to communicate with other buses, the bus garage and each school.
