In this featured piece by the Wisconsin State Journal, the publication reports on how Edgewood High School in Madison, Wisconsin, adopted tools from Singlewire Software to speed emergency response. The article details Edgewood’s use of InformaCast — Singlewire’s communications and safety management platform — along with the InformaCast Wearable Alert Badge, a small device staff can press to call for help or place the school into a lockdown. It explains how any teacher or staff member can alert others across the building the moment support is needed, how the rollout aligns with Alyssa’s Law, and how Singlewire limits badge location tracking to active emergencies to protect privacy.
Key Takeaways
- Edgewood High School in Madison is the first Wisconsin school to adopt the InformaCast Wearable Alert Badge, a wearable device any staff member can press to call for help.
- The badge works two ways depending on how many times the button is pressed: one setting requests additional support in a classroom, and the other places the whole school into a lockdown, with wireless beacons throughout the building detecting the signal.
- With InformaCast, any teacher or administrator can alert the building for a range of situations — medical incidents, safety threats, severe weather, and student conflicts — and can change the building’s status to help first responders move in.
- Edgewood’s system aligns with Alyssa’s Law, panic-alert legislation passed in 12 states that requires public schools to have a panic alert system and has not yet been introduced in Wisconsin.
- Singlewire protects privacy by tracking a badge’s location only when it’s pressed during an emergency; once the all-clear is given, tracking stops, and the software allows no daily tracking.
Original Article
Edgewood High School in Madison is revamping its approach to school safety this fall with two new tools that allow any school staff to call for help. Edgewood High School now uses InformaCast, a communications and safety management platform, from Madison-based Singlewire Software.
The platform allows any teacher or school administrator to alert others in the building for a range of situations, including medical incidents, safety threats, weather and student conflicts.
For example, if paramedics are needed for a medical incident, “I could, using InformaCast, activate the need for that medical team, and then the next thing I could do is change us (the building’s status) and put us into a hold,” said Tim Patton, Edgewood’s director of facilities and safety. “That hold would put everybody out of the hallways, and it would facilitate that movement of first responders into the building.”
About 1,600 school districts nationwide use Singlewire’s safety tools, Singlewire Software CEO Terry Swanson said, including more than 80 Wisconsin districts.
Patton, a former high school teacher and police officer, started in his role at Edgewood in January to help the school rework its safety practices.
Last spring, the school introduced the InformaCast Wearable Alert Badge.
The badge, about the size of a playing card but slightly thicker, features a button that teachers or staff can press in case of an emergency.
Staff wear the small device at all times. It can be used two ways, depending on how many times the button is pressed: one setting calls for additional support in a classroom, and the other puts the school into a lockdown.