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EdScoop
More schools are buying mobile 'panic buttons' for shooter scenarios
Written by Katya Schwenk
August 8, 2019
School districts around the country are equipping teachers with “panic
button” apps, which officials say are making schools safer. Experts
say, though, that while the apps might look like the future of
emergency response, schools and government must tread carefully when
adopting them.
Panic button apps abound in the public safety market, promising to put
rapid, comprehensive emergency response into people’s pockets. They
advertise to individuals, hospitals, construction workers, and myriad
other consumers, but the apps have received particular interest from
educators and school officials.
Many say they see the technology as a new and lifesaving defense
against school shootings like that in Parkland last year, which have
shaken the country and driven new safety measures in schools. Arkansas
adopted panic button software in its schools statewide in 2015; D.C.
schools did so last year.
In Oklahoma, which has invested $3 million in a panic button app to
launch this fall for all its 537 school districts, getting the software
“just seemed like a natural progression,” said Steffie Corcoran, the
director of communications at Oklahoma’s Department of Education.
“Oklahoma is very interested in prioritizing student safety, and has
been doing so for a long time,” Corcoran told EdScoop, adding that the
app had been met with “really enthusiastic interest” from all sides.
The Oklahoma’s Sheriffs’ Association endorsed the move, citing
headlines from other schools in other states that credit the app with
saving lives.
Oklahoma’s app is tech company Rave Mobile Safety’s “Rave Panic
Button,” which Rave says is used by “thousands of entities” nationwide.
The app actually has five panic buttons — when the app is opened, the
user can choose the class of emergency. The largest button, in bright
red, is for an “active shooter.” The other buttons send alarms for
fire, medical, police, or other general emergencies.
When any of the buttons are pressed, the app dials 911 — and then sends
alerts to chosen staff if the user is on campus. The 911 call center,
through a web-based application, can see the caller’s location and
information about the school, like floor plans and personnel. That’s
only, though, if the center has integrated Rave’s call center software,
which Rave says states and counties generally license with the app.
“The faster we can make people aware on a campus that they need to take
action, the better the outcome will be,” Noah Reiter, Rave’s vice
president of customer success told EdScoop. Even if “all the stars
align” during an emergency 911 call, he said, there’s often still a lag
before school administrators or other personnel are aware of the
incident. He said the Panic Button is solving that problem.
Legitimate concerns
The Rave software is not the only app that is trying to fill up the
gaps in emergency response. Mobile panic buttons have become something
of a fad lately in the industry, says April Heinze, a director at the
National Emergency Number Association. “It seems like every single day,
we get a new app popping up saying that they can do something
miraculous,” she said.
But those miracles aren’t always compatible with emergency response
systems, Heinze said. “They see a need, they make an application,
and then they ask, ‘Well, how is this going to work with 911?’ And most
often, it doesn’t quite work,” she said.
It’s one of the reasons, she said, that if the apps aren’t cautiously designed and implemented, they can be ineffective.
The Rave software, Heinze said, doesn’t fall into most of the traps
that bring down other public safety apps. The 911 dial is not routed
through a different number, nor does it attempt to directly contact
emergency responders — two well-meaning features of some apps that
Heinze said can breed confusion and cost time. The app doesn’t try,
either, to attach extra information to the call that most 911 call
centers can’t receive. Reiter calls those concerns “legitimate,” and
says that Rave has worked hard to mitigate them.
“They’re one of those innovators that work really hard to make sure
what they’re creating is useful and beneficial to the 911 community,”
Heinze said of the company. When innovators do that, she said, the apps
can bring “tremendous value.”
Future of emergency response
But without proper training for dispatchers on how to use software like
Rave’s, the apps can still easily overburden emergency response
centers, Heinze said, as they pile on new features and notifications
that dispatchers must attend to while they field calls. “It can be
detrimental,” she said.
And a more fundamental challenge of the apps, Heinze said, is that
novelty often doesn’t do well in emergency situations. “A lot of times,
you’ll see in places that have these applications that [users] won’t
even think about pushing the button,” she said. “They’ll just pick up
the phone and call 911, because that’s what we know how to do.”
The emergency response world is divided on whether such apps are the
future of emergency response, in schools or anywhere else. “In the long
run, it could be — the key word is ‘could’ — be a part of
next-generation 911,” Heinze said, referring to nationwide efforts to
replace the outdated, copper wire systems of most 911 call centers with
digital platforms that can handle video and images.
Reiter disagreed, saying he does not see the company and its Panic
Button as a temporary fix for 911, but rather part of a careful vision
for its future.
“In Rave’s view of the world,” Reiter said, “we’ve been providing
next-generation-like information long before next-generation 911 ever
was implemented.”
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