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between campuses and local law enforcement before an event takes place. The organizations can consult on how to best deploy these types of solutions, and everyone can come to a consensus on the steps that should be taken in the event of a real emergency.
These triggers can also initiate incidents through a mass notification system that automates other processes related to a school’s emergency response plan. This can include sending text and audio messages throughout a school and to mobile devices, locking doors, and sending invites to key stakeholders to join virtual collaboration spaces. This helps quickly gather the right people to assess a situation as it unfolds and determine the best course of action. Mass notification systems with incident management capabilities also allow school safety teams to access vital resources from their desktop computer or mobile app. This could include campus maps, links to security camera feeds, or checklists. Incident management capabilities help ensure every step of a response plan is followed, and mass notification helps ensure no one misses a message when it matters most. The goal is to put campuses in the best position to resolve an incident as quickly as possible so they can organize and execute a response.
Part of resolving an incident can sometimes also include reunification, and mass notification tools are helping with this obstacle, as well. If an incident requires students and teachers to
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evacuate campus—or a lockdown happens suddenly—it can be difficult to know where students are and whether or not they are safe. Using a mass notification app, teachers and administrators can leverage rostering features to help account for students. Teachers can check in students and record their status, which gets passed along to administrators who can then account for their entire campus population. This can then help calm parent worries as students are reunited when the incident resolves.
While there is no magic solution to stop violent incidents from happening on campuses, technology is evolving to meet the needs of students, staff and administrators—as well as the demands of parents who want to know their children will be safe. Tools like mobile apps and wearable devices put the power of protection in the palm of a teacher’s hand, so that when urgent situations arise, requesting help is as simple as pushing a button. Ultimately, this should be what every campus strives to achieve: a minimum-effort safety solution that delivers maximum results.
Paul Shain is the president and CEO of Singlewire Software, developers of InformaCast. Shain has more than a decade of experience helping develop solutions that help enhance safety and communication on K–12 and higher education campuses.
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