The Oregon-Davis School Corporation is considering the addition of a smartphone app to quickly notify law enforcement of an active shooter or other emergency. School Guard creates a direct link between teachers, staff and nearby law enforcement officers. The app has a panic button that speed dials 911 and instantly sends an alert directly to nearby law enforcement officers with the companion free Hero 911 app on their phones.
Each school corporation would pay a one-time setup fee for mapping, followed by a monthly monitoring fee. The cost averages $3.97 per student per year for a corporation with 300 students. Briles says you can’t put a price on safety.
“You have U.S. 30 right here, and if you have a couple police officers to the east and a couple police officers to the west that are patrolling, all of a sudden you have four state policemen on site in a matter of seconds or minutes, whatever it would be. That’s very impressive with this. Walkerton is 15 miles, max. Plymouth, 15 miles. LaPorte, 20 miles. If they get that within three seconds, and with an active shooter they’re not going to be taking their time getting to the scene, so they will be getting here pretty quick,” Briles said.
“As county superintendents we have an obligation to protect all of our students in our county. We have students from Oregon-Davis going to Knox for vocational classes and for our special education classes. In several of the area schools we travel like that in order to make programs affordable, so I think it’s important for all of us to work together to have this program or a program like this that reflects unity in our county.”
Briles adds O-D will look at funding the School Guard app with grant money next year. He also plans to talk to business owners and individuals about possibly underwriting part of the cost. Find more information online at www.SchoolGuard.com.
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