The Blue Valley School Board voted unanimously on Monday to issue a five-year contract putting a new crisis alert system into its school buildings.
Driving the news: Created by school safety solutions company CENTEGIX, the new security measure will allow individual staff members to call for help anywhere on a Blue Valley campus by pushing a button on a wearable security badge.
How it works: In the event of a crisis or emergency, any employee in the district who has been issued a CENTEGIX crisis alert badge can push the button on their badge, activating an alert.
- The badges can initiate two types of alerts: a staff alert requesting immediate attention for situations like a fight or a student medical emergency, or a campus-wide emergency lockdown, which will set off emergency lights and prompt a pre-recorder lockdown announcement to play throughout the building.
- Additionally, the crisis alert platform sends the alert to the district’s head office, so the office can initiate emergency protocols remotely.
- The badges will work both inside and outside of any school campuses within the Blue Valley School District.
Key quote: “Imagine you’re a teacher and a student collapses in your room. You push that button three times, and we know who the teacher is and precisely where they are in the building and help starts coming your way,” said Dan Carney, Blue Valley director of safety and security.
Other updates: The addition of this $1.8 million crisis alert system is just one of several safety measures funded by the Blue Valley’s 2020 bond referendum approved by district voters in January 2020.
- Over the summer, the district also renovated its classroom doors using bond funds to have thumb-turn locks as an additional safety measure.
When new crisis alert system will be in Blue Valley schools
Now that the board has approved the contract with CENTEGIX, the company will spend the first semester of the 2022-23 school year installing the system into buildings.
- Staff training on how to use the crisis alert badges is also set to take place during the fall semester this year.
- Carney said the hope is to have the system fully up and running in Blue Valley in January, by the time students return from the holiday break for the winter semester.
