Assistance at the press of a button

Local schools are continuing to make investments in infrastructure and technology that contribute to improving the security and safety of students. Adams Central’s Elementary Assistant Principal Chris Reilly and Middle School/High School Vice Principal Graham McAllister informed the School Board about a major change underway in the classroom.

“Each staff member, including teachers and support staff will now wear alert badges in addition to their required ID badge,” stated Reilly. “They serve two communication purposes. One is for situations when a teacher needs assistance from an administrator. The other, which I hope we never have to use, is to initiate a lockdown.”

He continued to explain that using the Centegix Crisis Alert System, a teacher who is on the southern end of the school and sees something that would cause a threat to student safety can press the lock down button on their badge and the entire school will be locked down within seconds. The badges also can be used on campus around the clock. If a teacher or administrator is at an extracurricular activity and they notice a threat, they can press their button and the emergency action plans will be underway.

“We used to have to call the office, and then the secretary would have to trigger the response, but now it is done by the press of a button,” said McAllister. “This will be completely implemented into the crisis response plan. All our teachers were trained on the PD day on February 1st. We are making our way through the remaining staff.”

The badges work anywhere on the school’s campus, so if a situation was occurring at one of the sports complexes on the school grounds, the situation can be responded to efficiently. The school has already used the assistance button five times to get administrators to help with students and the badges have proven effective in each situation.

“The two of you have done a great job of leading us in this process, making sure everything is taken care of,” noted Superintendent Joel Mahaffey. “Whether that be scheduling the training, responding when something needs to be in place, and connecting with whoever you need to connect with.”