(WXYZ) — The challenges schools face these days are very different from what they were just a couple of decades ago. As safety increasingly takes priority, local districts are adapting to the reality.
See Mike Duffy's full story in the video below
Rochester Community Schools is implementing a new platform of technologies. It's part of an effort to streamline resources and cut down on emergency response times.
Staff will be wearing badges that have a button on them, and simply pressing that button will engage an entire system of mapping and emergency responses.
“For sure safety and security. My son is at school for seven hours plus a day. He stays after for sports activities. And with everything that’s going on in the world, I just want to make sure that he and his friends and his teachers are all safe," Jamie Sak, a parent of a seventh grader, said.
“I’ve been in the district for 35 years and there was a situation where a student went down and we called 911. The ambulance was coming to the school and we didn’t have numbers on the doors. So they didn’t know what entrance to get in. The time that was wasted going around…and our principal at the time, this is back in the 90s, was out there trying to wave down the ambulance to get into the school to get to that young man to help him out," Calvin Gross, a teacher and coach, said.
Rochester is the sixth-largest school district in Michigan, and big changes are coming.
“So the strategic safety platform is a wearable badge that incorporates our ability to map our staff and lets us know where everybody is in the event of a crisis while they’re on school grounds, whether it's outside or inside the school building," Superintendent Nicholas Russo said.
The system is called the Centegix Safety Platform. Centegix is headquartered in Atlanta, and they say they were founded on the idea that technology can create safer, more secure environments.
Russo says they began looking into upgrading their system after the 2024 Apalachee High School shooting.
Watch below: Rochester superintendent speaks on how the safety platform works.
"Let’s just say a student were to hurt themselves, what would happen at that point and time?" I asked.
“A staff member would press this three times, I need help. (A) response team comes and services the staff and student and see what the needs are," Russo said.
"Now let's just say, heaven forbid, something more dire happened, what would happen then?" I asked.
“So a staff member would hit this eight times or more and it triggers a lockdown on the school. We would have the strobe lights going off, we would have the PA system taken over, initiate a lockdown. That indicates to everybody at the same time what is happening, and simultaneously sends a signal to our 911 responders," he said.
It also creates a digital map that all those first responders can reference to know exactly where there’s a problem.
“So they will see not only the location where this is being triggered or multiple locations where this is being activated, but they’ll also see where all the assets are in the building, and AED, a fire extinguisher," Russo said.
The district will spend $1.2 million over five years for the safety system.
“We are the largest school district in the state to adopt something like this and we’re very proud of the fact that it will match up with Alyssa’s Law, which is prominent across the country," Russo said. "That really is about getting a system that will help not only internal responses but be a direct communication with our 911 responders.”
