We had a school staff meeting today, and one of the immediate things that became clear with even a 3 minute role playing game about a bad person on campus, is that there are only 2 phones that can make announcements. If the person is in the office, and if the counseling office is empty and locked, or no one with knowledge can get there, there’s no way to send a lockdown signal.
I said we could give every teacher an air horn (it’s a small school, and that might even be heard enough, maybe), but maybe it wouldn’t, and the principal pointed out that you get these subs who think the job is to read Reddit, and eventually some kid sneaks out the air horn and literally deafens someone, causing a very expensive lawsuit.
Just in a DARPA clear sky thinking kind of way, I was wondering if there’s some kind of mesh tech such that every device in every room could go DING if someone typed in a code or pushed a button.
Or if you have a better idea, please do tell. Every room has a wifi access point, so it should be possible to push the magic button and have the IT department automatically send back a signal to every gateway and to every connected device.
If every room has WiFi, then something like Alexa should work.
It wouldn’t be a Button pushed, but it can be programmed to only respond to something specific.
Shouldn’t be too hard to create a system in which teachers can send a text to a specific number which then triggers an automated alarm/announcement. IT departments do the inverse where a outage or other system failures send texts to on-call staff. This is basically the same thing.
You’d need a mini server running in the office that is somehow wired to a PA or other loud noisemaker and provides a web service that can be triggered via a text. You could probably remove cell phones from the equation by creating a transmitter that could be installed into the rooms but that’s more expensive since you can’t BYOD.
Our school has all-call service. Parents sign up at the beginning of the school year with cel numbers or e-mail addresses. If the school has an emergency or announcement of some importance, you get a text or e-mail. It seems to me something of that sort could be put in place to text school wide each teachers desk-top or phone a code or warning of some sort. There would have be methods for teachers in each room or area to be able to call a sos, if they witness something from their vantage point via the computers or phones. And, of course a central place in the office or lounge or wherever.
There are some phone systems that have to ability to be configured to function as intercoms outside of the existing PA system. If a specific number is dialed it will force the phones in that specific call group to auto-answer and IIRC place the phone into speakerphone mode. It sounds like you have two phone connected directly to the PA system and the phone system is independent. Depending on the phone system and intercom system it’s also possible to integrate the two so that the phone can be used to make announcements over the PA.
Alternatively, I think someone mentioned that IT departments get alerts from devices if they malfunction. It shouldn’t be too difficult to purchase a device that when it’s unplugged or a specific event happens it sends an email or text alert to a specific distribution group. We monitor and get email/text alerts for our UPS’s for power outages, our generator to see when it turns on/off (this one uses a cellular signal), our copiers for paper jams, failed or deactivated proximity card attempts, and use WaterBug sensors to detect flooding in the server room. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a sensor that can be easily triggered. Even if it’s as simple as a bunch of $100 WaterBugs and the staff is advised to dump a cup of water on it in case of emergency to trigger the alert message. It’s crude and seems ridiculous, but it’s *something *and it would prevent most false alerts that you may get with an air horn or simple alarm.
It’s been a few years since I’ve worked in schools and been involved in the security aspects, but one of the bigger issues that I’ve never seen addresses were substitutes that weren’t trained in the various drills (lockdown, lockout, fire, etc.). They always seem to be a huge liability due to lack of training. The other thing that killed me was that we had staff (including myself) who traveled between buildings and were never alerted to the various events occurring. I walked into buildings several times during lockdown drills because they weren’t disabling the proximity cards or sending alert messages to staff outside of the range of the PA system.
Because I work as a volunteer in our highschool I have an entry card for many exit doors in the school, which are ‘always’ locked. The doors aren’t always locked. The kids going from the school to athletics or an activity in the multi-purpose building often jimmy or prevent the door from shutting all the way, so they can get back in later. The offices all have screens with cameras pointed at all exits. No one is sitting around looking at these screens. Hardening schools buildings is/should be a priority. A panic button would be a great thing, if handled properly. Do buildings still have those little fire alarm things, where you break the glass and pull a switch down? That could be expanded for any kind of alarm.
Years ago I worked for a Sheriff’s Dept. It was a small department and our building was maybe 5,000 square feet if that and around 100 years old with the old steam radiator style heat. The jail was the entire second floor and the correction officer was up there by himself 99% of the time. Our “panic/communication system” back then was to use the large metal cell keys to tap out a code on the heating pipes, with the rule being that random taps that didn’t make sense meant “help!”.
One of the deputies liked to tinker and ended up taking apart an old garage door opener and hooked it to a small strobe light and siren. The deputy then carried the opener button. If he got in trouble, he could press the button, activating the light and siren in dispatch. That stayed in place for several years until the built a new, giant jail and issued everyone radios.
I assume they mean not laying down new wiring/infrastructure.
As already mentioned, some kind of text alert seems a pretty obvious solution. You could make it run through an app that only teachers or trusted students can download. Thinking about it, an app would be best because you could have it require permission to override your volume and location settings.
That was my assumption, but cabling in buildings is typically done through the ceiling or if it is done through the ground for some reason there should be existing conduit that it could be fished through.
I was part of ERT teams at my companies for 20 years or more. We had handheld radios. Most schools I go into with my kids have them now too. Does your school have those? They’re normally used for things like “send Johnny to the lunch room” or “is Felicity in the yard”. In this case, use a Code Phrase or series of beeps out on the faculty channel and everyone knows what to do. I would suggest using a different code for drills, if you have a concern that kids might think try and prank it. You can always practice with the real code when they are off campus.
Second question - who controls the bell rings and how could that person be notified? Going really old school is it just a question of getting word to that person to set off a school wide set of known rings, like a fire alarm, so everyone can move into action?
Kambuckta in this case, yes, it’s sad that it needs to be discussed, but there are a number of reasons a school would hit lockdown other than a shooter. There are issues like parental disputes, unknown adults (AKA drunk and disorderliness on campus), teens throwing rocks, and so on. In CA, we had earthquakes (well, you don’t really have to notify for those, they take care of that themselves). In the MidWest and other parts, you could have extremely short notice to get into shelter from tornadoes. Hopefully we’ll find clues on how to protect our kids in the other threats we’ve faced.
Here is a personal safety smartphone app from Stanley (the tool company). The webpage says, “Whenever a staff member feels unsafe, they can alert your security authorities by simply shaking their phone or pushing a button. Their phone can also be used as an alarm device, causing it to emit loud noises and strobe lighting.” Obviously it requires that the teachers have smartphones, but I expect most of them already do.
@Sunny Daze:
I would think that if everyone had handheld radios, the OP would have mentioned it. When you say most schools you’ve been to have them, do mean security staff or all the teachers? Both?
Sunny, you are so smart. I forgot that every administrator or hall monitor always have hand held radios. I think ( not positive) the bells are on timers of some sort. There are a series of beeps when the office is on the intercom system that mean differing things. Such as an scheduling announcement or calling a certain group of kids to be somewhere. The in-place intercom system can be a boon.
The bells here are broken, and the admins refuse to spend the thousands it would take to repair them, and I agree. The students are pretty well behaved, and furthermore, a former student who is now a computer science major built a very small web page that counts down to the bells and beeps as the bell system (mine has a cardinal chirping, because he allowed the page to point at a sound file on the computer).
Ideally, there would be a device that’s the size of a couple packs of cards that can go on the wifi and can both trigger and sound the alarm, as the signal is relayed through the wifi to the IT department and back to the other devices. Or it could use RF to penetrate the six classroom and two gym walls to reach everyone directly, if that’s possible.
Giving everyone a radio I guess could work, if the teachers leave the radios on a certain channel, and that’s the emergency only channel.
Security staff? I’m sure that larger (and possibly more urban) schools have security people on campus. Most schools don’t. They have drop ins with local PD community officers. I was speaking of school and administrative staff.
Cardinal I think a wi-fi trigger would work, if the teachers can activate it easily. The benefit to the radio is that it is on or very near the personnel at all times. They can volume adjust as needed. It doesn’t need to used for emergency communication only. It can be used to reach specific personnel if required for everyday things. You just need to set a communications protocol and follow it. The key is the codes are serious business and people need to know what they are. The benefit to the radios are that personnel can have them out on the playgrounds, by the busses, in the hallways, and so on. You aren’t tethered to someone being in their room, and you don’t have to worry about finding an app that works with everyone’s cell phone. It is an expenditure though. It doesn’t have to be a large one (I don’t know how many teachers and staff you are talking about), but there is a cost in acquiring the radios.
You could also talk to your local law enforcement if you followed this route, and see if there was any mutual value to be found in creating a shared communication template in emergency situations (it’s not a bad idea no matter what you do). I mention it because there are times when differing communications structures or lack of communication can cause valuable time in a emergency. You may already have such a plan in place, in which case carry on.
We had a very unpopular superintendent who was fond of unscheduled drop-ins that could have immediate adverse consequences on a teacher or administrator’s career. Cell phones were very adequate to track his movements, and three minutes after he pulled up at a school, everyone knew. People check their phones, and then they check their neighbors. Radios get left in desks. I’d work within existing technology people already use.
