Thomas County BOE hears presentation on school safety badges

May 11—THOMASVILLE- The Thomas County School Board heard a special presentation from CENTEGIX during their regular board meeting on Tuesday night, prompting them to consider purchasing school safety badges for all employees.

President of Grace Ed Technologies, Brent Coleman, spoke to the Board on behalf of CENTEGIX, showing them a badge CENTEGIX offers that puts power back into the hands of teachers.

Coleman shared statistics of what teachers face daily in the classroom, not including the threat of school shootings.

Ten percent of educators are physically assaulted each year, while 75 percent of teachers are verbally harassed each year. On top of the harassment and assault teachers face, they also witness 24 percent of high school students become involved in a psychical altercation each year.

"Would you invest in something that helps in the case of just a school shooting, you probably might, but this does more than that," he explained. "When you put 5,000 people in one building, people have seizures, people have strokes, they have overdoses, and in those cases it's about response time."

CENTEGIX's motto is "every second matters," because of this the badges they offer to teachers for all scenarios sends out an alert in just a matter of seconds.

"With our wearable Crisis Alert Badge, I truly believe this offers school personnel the safest, quickest and fastest way to send for help," Coleman said. "It could be for any scenario, a shooting, a fight or someone having chest pains."

Coleman allowed all of the Board members the chance to test the Crisis Alert Badge. The badge is pressed three times in the event of an emergency other than a school shooting and it immediately sends a confirmation to both the teacher and facilitators that help is on the way.

Coleman explained that every faculty members gets a badge, including teachers, administrators custodians and lunchroom employees and once one of those individuals presses the button, administrators are notified immediately by an alert on their phone or computers.

"We can immediately also send out audio and visual alerts, so even if I'm a guest in the building I know there's a serious situation taking place," Coleman said.

The first alert teachers can send out is a staff alert.

"This is your guaranteed return on investment," Coleman shared. "The data shows that schools usually average two staff alerts per week, because you're going to have injuries, fights, seizures, non-custodial issues, threats and elementary kids deciding to try and run away."

In these cases, teachers would press the button three times and responders are alerted. When responders receive the alert, a map of the school pops up and shows where the teacher is in the building and who they are, so responders can act quickly.

Coleman shared some inspirational stories of how CENTEGIX's quick response time and staff alerts have saved lives over the past few years.

One example was of a child on the playground who stopped breathing. The teacher on duty quickly pressed her button and help came running. Coleman stated without CENTEGIX, it is likely the student would've passed away.

The second, more serious alert is a campus-wide alert.

"You keep pressing the button eight times and you'll get a second vibration," Coleman explained. "This now alerts the building staff and district staff."

Board Chair Leah Smith questioned if staff would have to remember to press the alert three times for staff notifications and eight times for district notifications.

Coleman said teachers would have to remember the difference between the three times and eight times, but the reasoning behind this is because teachers may often not remember if they've already pressed three times, so may do it twice.

When teachers press the button eight times a strobe light will go off in red.

"We are going to integrate with your intercom, so the platform will send out a message and tell people what to do," Coleman said.

Coleman said with this option, district leaders can also opt to integrate police officers in to receive these alerts as well.

"They will know where you were when you sent out an alert that a shooter was active, so if you were on the northwest wing of campus, that could make the difference in 30 seconds," Coleman explained.

On the flip side, police can also communicate through the tool with district leaders to let them know if they have an ongoing scenario in the school zone, where they may want to lock things down.

The goal is to have both teachers and police lockdown a school in order for protection at any time.

The Board thanked Coleman for his time and presentation, with Superintendent Dr. Lisa Williams stating that they will vote on the CENTEGIX system at the next board meeting.