Do a Google (News - Alert) search for school shootings and you’ll quickly discover that they are all too common, even if not every shooting and act of school violence is on the order of a Columbine or Sandy Hook tragedy. Sadly, school violence is an ever-present concern for U.S. law enforcement and school administrators.
While it is hard for schools to stop all violence, there is plenty of room to limit its scope and improve the emergency response when violence does occur.
One way that schools can better address the challenge is through rich communications services. Businesses are already using chat, video conferencing and real-time communications to connect personnel and workers in the field, and the same technology can be employed within schools to promote safety.
Mutualink K12, for instance, is a newly-released, interoperable communications platform designed to directly connect schools with first responders.
The system works by connecting the public address system and school cameras already in schools with first responder systems so they can tap into these communication devices when an emergency emerges.
School systems “have radio systems many times that are different than police,” noted Mutualink chairman and CEO, Mark Hatten, in a recent article by IWCE Urgent Communications. “Many of them have cameras in the school. They have phone systems in there. They also have PA and intercom systems. Why don’t we hook all that up and put it up on the Mutualink network?”
In an active-shooter exercise run at a Hartford, Conn. School, police found that better access to school communications made a substantial difference in their ability to respond to the crisis. With the rich communications services access through Mutualink, in the shooter exercise the police were able to reduce the time it took them to secure the scene from 17 minutes down to 4.5, according to Hatten. That can be the difference between life and death.
“It was this whole experience that was multimedia-activated, which is so much better than video alone or audio alone,” Hatten said.
Of course, using rich communication services within schools can do more than just benefit first responders when there is an emergency, of course; such systems can also help officials better monitor students, and deliver better communications within the school and among teachers.
Businesses are quickly getting wise to the advantages of rich communication services, but perhaps schools won’t be far behind.
Edited by Alisen Downey