1 mistake triggers code red alert at 11 schools in Cobb County school district

WSBTV.com News Staff
·2 min read

Last week a false code red alert sent 11 local schools into lockdown, and had children calling their parents — fearing they were in the middle of a school shooting.

Channel 2′s Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell learned how Cobb County Schools is modifying its security system.

Newell also spoke with parents who told her this accident has triggered even more questions about the schools’ new security system.

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“It’s very concerning — it’s just not good,” Germide Nord said.

It wasn’t a scheduled school drill; in fact it wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

That’s what happened last week and it was an accident that Cobb County school leaders say an employee is responsible for.

“Code red alerts were issued at 11 Cobb schools,” Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said during a school board meeting last week.

We spoke with a parent whose son attends Teasley elementary school.

“He said to me ‘oh we have a code red today’ and I said, ‘What? You had one too?’,” the parent said.

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“Some of the input that we got from the community included finding out that kids were scared. One child was trampled. Instruments were broken. Teachers were grabbing students from the hall,” Laura Judge, a parent, told Channel 2 Action News.

The district’s security system is new, and Channel 2 Action News asked Ragsdale about it back in August, on the first day of the school year.

“That system is to be up and running by today. Now I haven’t gotten a status — we have a debrief meeting later today to hear about all of the things that are going well; some of the things that we need to take care of,” Ragsdale said back in August.

Fast forward to October and the district is now making changes to the system to prevent accidental lockdowns.

“Training will be repeated to specific groups of employees to reinforce certain aspects of the system,” Ragsdale said.

Channel 2 Action News asked the district how one employee was able to trigger a code red alert at 11 other different schools.

Here is the statement received from the district:

“It’s unclear when specific employees will received additional training on the new security system. District officials say they can’t discuss particulars of safety-related training, including timing. When asked if parents were notified about the code red alert error. District officials say when the code red alert went off, everyone involved responded quickly and as they were trained. District officials went on to say that code reds were cancelled within a few minutes and communication went out from each school within approximately 30 minutes. It’s unclear how one employee was able to trigger a code red alert at several different schools. District officials say it happened through human error and the incident is being handled as a personnel matter. They at no time was there any threat, nor were any of the students and staff in danger.”

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