School Board purchases panic button alarm system for upcoming school year

PERRY, Ga. — At June’s School Board meeting, after a concerned parent made her voice known, the school board responded, saying safety is their top priority. A recent purchase may help the school board keep that promise.

Among the more notable purchases approved at July’s Houston County School Board meeting on July 19 was a system that the school board hopes will help keep students safe this upcoming school year.

Last Tuesday, the school board approved a $1.7 million purchase of an alarm system that can ensure a quick and simple response, should a crisis arise while school is in session.

The alarm system comes from a company called CENTEGIX, and according to the company, their CrisisAlert system has been implemented in over 1000 schools.

It’s a simple procedure. With a push of a button, staff can notify administration, teachers and students of an emergency situation. In the most drastic of situations, the system can trigger a lockdown as well, and alert the school’s safety teams, and local law enforcement.

According to CENTEGIX, the demand for their device has gone up by 270%, now including Houston County’s school system. The school board said time is of the essence in an emergency, and a system like CrisisAlert has the capability to quickly notify all parties involved that need information.

Walter Stephens, Executive Director of School Operations said the purchase of this system was a year in the making.

“We’ve been looking at this for quite some time. We looked at several crisis alert systems, but we were more comfortable with this particular system because of the level of notification that the administrators of the building as well as district office administrators were able to receive to alert us in the event of an incident occurring on school campuses,” Stephens said.

To gauge interest, they have already installed the system in an elementary, middle, and high school, and the school board said the response has been positive.

“All three levels have different challenges that they’ll face and we wanted to make sure that this was something that was going to fit at every level of education in our district,” Stephens said.

Stephens also promoted a crucial aspect in emergency response: location.

“Wherever that incident is, [the system] will pinpoint the location of that incident. Administrators can look at their phones. There’s an app that administrators will download on their phones that they’re able to see where that incident is happening and respond immediately,” Stephens said.

Stephens said that the rollout and installation would be district wide, during the first semester of the year. The board hopes to have the system fully installed in all schools by Christmas at the latest, but they’re hopeful that it will be installed sooner. They’re currently in talks with the company to plan out logistics on the installation, but when those are ready, the install would be quick.

“One of the things that we like about the system is that it doesn’t require any, what we call hard wiring or dramatic changes to the existing facilities. So they’re able to install it in a very timely manner, in most cases. For example, the three schools we piloted in, they were able to install the system within a matter of hours, and they were up and running the very next day,” Stephens said.

At the end of the day, the school board hopes this purchase will give parents more peace of mind sending their children to school.

“It’s one of those things when we start talking about school safety. It’s another level of security that we are actually placing in our buildings, and again, I think it speaks to the board of education, as well as our superintendent for prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of all of our staff and students, and our community when they enter into our buildings.

“Safety is not just a phrase that we use, but it is something that we truly believe in, and therefore, the board was gracious enough, based on the superintendent’s recommendation, to approve the purchase of this system,” Stephens said.

To learn more about the CrisisAlert system, visit CENTEGIX’s website at centegix.com.

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