Recording from Wednesday, April 8th, 2026
What This School Safety Roundtable Covered
A written safety protocol is only as strong as the people who can act on it — and the systems that put it in motion. This roundtable brought together school safety practitioners, a law enforcement veteran, indoor mapping specialists, and the team behind the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) to work through what it takes to turn a framework into a functioning, practiced, coordinated response.
The conversation centered on the SRP’s five clear actions — Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, and Shelter in Place — and why a shared vocabulary matters so much across every audience. When students, staff, parents, neighboring districts, and first responders all use the same terms for the same situations, confusion drops and response improves. The panel traced that logic from classroom posters all the way to the dispatch center: the same language, the same map, the same moment of clarity when it is needed most.
From there, the discussion moved into what makes a protocol actionable. Accurate indoor maps give every responder a common operating picture before they arrive. Wearable alert badges let any staff member initiate an alert from anywhere on campus, and when paired with mapped floor plans, that alert carries location context alongside the message. Singlewire InformaCast connects these pieces into a single platform, delivering the right notification across every device at the moment an event begins.
The panelists were equally direct about what technology cannot replace: relationships and practice. Building trust with local law enforcement before an incident, drilling with live systems rather than tabletop scenarios, and involving the full community — parents, neighboring schools, dispatch centers — are what make every other layer of the safety plan work. The group closed with practical starting points, from a conversation over coffee with your police chief to federal and state grants that can fund the first steps.
Panel Participants
Ryan Mauer (Host) • Regional Manager • Singlewire Software
Pat Hamilton • Alliance Director • The “I Love U Guys” Foundation
Tim Patton • Director of Facilities and Safety • Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart
Asher Torbeck • Safety and Security Coordinator • Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District
Joe Hanson • VP of Sales • Critical Response Group
Mike Hanson • Retired Captain, Madison Police Department; Founder • Mission Secure Consulting
Ben Scudder • Senior Solution Specialist • Singlewire Software
Nine Key Takeaways for Activating the Standard Response Protocol
- A shared language is the foundation — The SRP’s five actions — Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, and Shelter in Place — cover nearly every situation a school will face. When every person in the building uses the same terms for the same actions, response is faster, cleaner, and less dependent on whoever happens to be in charge at that moment.
- The language has to reach every audience — The same vocabulary needs to extend from the classroom to the community. Staff, students, parents, the media, neighboring districts, and first responders all benefit from shared terms. When a local news outlet gets the protocol right, the broader community stays calmer too.
- Tell students and families what you’re doing — and why — Schools that explain their protocols see stronger engagement in drills and better recall when it counts. The “I Love U Guys” Foundation offers parent handouts in more than 20 languages at iloveyouguys.org. Share them before a drill, along with talking points, so the conversation continues at home.
- Maps give every responder a common operating picture — Nearly all of the people who will respond to a major incident are unfamiliar with the building. Accurate indoor maps — pre-loaded in dispatch systems, in squad cars, and in communication platforms like InformaCast — let responders move with purpose rather than searching hallways for a room they’ve never seen.
- Location awareness turns alerts into actionable information — Knowing that an alert was initiated matters. Knowing where it happened matters more. Wearable alert badges paired with mapped floor plans give responders both pieces at once — who needs help and where they are — from the moment an event begins.
- Relationships come before technology — The most effective first step isn’t a software subscription — it’s a conversation. Invite your police chief, fire chief, or emergency manager for coffee and talk through what you’re building. The relationships forged in calm moments are what make every system work under pressure. The SRP’s biggest side effect, as one panelist put it, is bringing people to the table who would otherwise never meet.
- Drill with your live systems, not around them — Practicing a protocol without activating the technology leaves a gap. Coordinate drills with your 911 dispatch center in advance, include first responders when possible, and make sure every staff member knows what the system sounds and feels like before the day they need it. Confidence in a crisis comes directly from repetition in a calm one.
- Everyday use is the best preparation — When staff use the same platform for routine announcements, bell schedules, and weather alerts, they arrive at an emergency with familiarity rather than hesitation. If the system fires for the bell, the staff already know it works — and they already know how to use it.
- Grant funding can close the gap — Federal and state grants — including the DOJ school mapping grant, COPS grants, and BJA STOP grants — can help districts fund safety technology across multiple years. County-level applications can be submitted on behalf of schools, and many districts in mapped states have accessed these funds already. Start by exploring what is available before assuming the cost is out of reach.
Resources Referenced in This Roundtable
- Find Safety Grant Funding
- InformaCast Critical Incident Mapping (Video)
- InformaCast Wearable Alert Badge Demo (Video)
Connect your protocols to every device
InformaCast delivers the right message to the right people at the exact right time — across speakers, phones, desktops, wearables, and signage. See how it activates the SRP in your school.
Read the Full Roundtable Transcript
This transcript was generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability. Speaker attributions are approximate.
Ryan Mauer — Host · Singlewire Software
Welcome to today’s roundtable. Thank you so much for joining us. Today’s roundtable conversation is an exciting day. So the topic is activating the standard response protocol with maps, alerts, and wearable technology.
My name is Ryan Mauer. I’m a regional manager here with Singlewire. And again, just super grateful for you all to have been able to join us today. Today, we’re going to explore how to implement and operationalize standard protocols, shared terminology, real time location visibility with connected technology so you can empower your staff, reduce response delays, and strengthen emergency coordination, which is great stuff for us to be discussing.
Our goal today is that you leave with a clear understanding of how to align your school’s approach with first responders and, again, across that common language, some technology, and standard response protocols best practices. So before we begin, I’ve got a couple housekeeping things for us. If you have questions during the webinar, please put those, into the Q and A. It should be at the top right of our screen here.
We have team members who are standing by, some talented folks who, will be able to answer those questions based on the topics that we discussed today. We’ll actually bring some of those up into a Q and A at the end of the session too if we have some extra time. But we’re more than happy to either answer them in real time today or certainly reach back out and have ongoing conversations with you.
Second piece of housekeeping is we have this session being recorded. So once we’re all off of the time together today, we’ll send you a link to access that recording if you’d like to go back to it. Or in the off chance you weren’t able to attend or just attend a portion, we’ll make sure you have that. So again, thank you so much for being here.
So without further ado, I want to get to our panelists for today, some, the talent of afternoon, so to speak. So, we’re going bring these folks on stage. Love to hear a little bit about each of these, individuals, and let’s jump into it. So first and foremost, from the I Love You Guys Foundation, Mr. Pat Hamilton. So Pat, great to see you, as always. Take a few minutes to introduce yourself for those that may not know you.
Pat Hamilton — Alliance Director · The “I Love U Guys” Foundation
Yeah. Hi, everyone. And it’s good to see you too. Again, Ryan, Pat Hamilton. I am the Alliance Director for the I Love You Guys Foundation.
I’ve been, associated with the foundation since probably, like, two thousand and eight, late two thousand and eight. I’ve been an employee of the foundation for the last couple of years, but before that, served as on their board of directors for almost a decade and was one of the people that helped develop the SRP and then the the Witch Standard Response Protocol. And then standard reunification method also came from ADAMS twelve. So during those times, that late two thousand period, I was working with John Michael’s sister when I was director security for Adams twelve Five Star Schools, and she was Sergeant Heidi Waltz from the Brookfield Police Department.
So that’s how I got involved with the foundation and have been doing this work. This school safety work is definitely my passion, and I’m fortunate to be able to do that now that I’ve left public education.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. It’s always a pleasure to have you. We, we certainly appreciate the I Love You Guys Foundation and the partnership we’ve got with you all. It’s, it’s important work. So thanks for being here.
Pat Hamilton
My pleasure.
Ryan Mauer
Yeah. All right. Next up, from Edgewood High School, Mr. Tim Patton. Hey Tim, a long time no talk, and we just chatted this morning, so I want you to take a few minutes and introduce yourself to the folks on the call.
Tim Patton — Director of Facilities and Safety · Edgewood High School
You bet, nice to see you again, Ryan and Pat, and good afternoon everybody. I’m Tim Patton. I’m a new director of facilities and safety here at Edgewood High School in Madison, Wisconsin.
We have six hundred students on our fifty five acre campus. We actually share this campus with a grade school and university, and I just recently retired after twenty four years in policing, spent a majority of that time in training, and then prior to that, I was a special education teacher and a coach here in Madison for ten years. It’s a pleasure to be with everybody today.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Pat, and thank you for the work that both you’re doing now and, that you certainly did in the classroom, so we appreciate that.
All right. Next up, Mr. Asher Torbeck, with, the Middleton Cross Plains School District. And fun fact, where my wife and I, our three sons, also attend. So near and dear. Mr. Torbeck.
Asher Torbeck — Safety and Security Coordinator · Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District
Hello, good afternoon everyone. Yeah, Asher Torbeck, I’m the Safety and Security Coordinator for the Middleton Cross Plains School District. We have eleven schools, fourteen buildings total, a little over seven thousand kids, so a moderate sized district for our area.
About twenty four years of experience doing this, I spent a couple of years in the Middle East with the Army and then also fifteen years in law enforcement. I’ve been an SRO, I’ve been a patrol sergeant, I’ve been all the things, so very passionate about school safety.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. Thank you for everything you do for, for, the local community and all your time and service as well.
All right, next up, Venerable Mr. Joe Hanson with Critical Response Group. Hey, Joe. Good to see you again.
Joe Hanson — VP of Sales · Critical Response Group
Hey. Thanks, Ryan, and good to see everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Joe Hanson. I grew up in Wisconsin, went to college at Marquette.
After that, I spent eleven years in the military in special operations, did five combat deployments, then joined the team here at Critical Response Group, kind of employing one of the main communications techniques that we use in the community. And today, we’re over two hundred employees now. We’ve mapped close to twenty seven thousand schools across the country. It’s about eighteen hundred of those in Wisconsin.
So I’m really happy to be here. Passionate about school safety as well.
Ryan Mauer
Absolutely. The work that you all do is so incredibly important. Thank you for doing it. And I won’t hold the Marquette piece against you as a Badger, but we’ll maybe come back to that later.
It’s all good. Alright. Thanks for being here. Yeah. Mister Mike Hanson. Hey, mister Hanson. Great to see you again.
Mike Hanson — Retired Captain, Madison P.D. · Mission Secure Consulting
Hey, great to see you as well. Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate the opportunity here. My name is Mike Hanson.
I, recently retired for as a captain for the Madison Wisconsin Police Department where I was there for twenty three years. And for the last twelve years I’ve been instructing for Northwestern University at their Police Command School. And then recently I formed a company called Mission Secure Consulting and that’s where I got connected with Singlewire here and what we’re doing is assessing the safety and operational plans, emergency operation plans for schools, place of worship, and businesses. And it’s just been very interesting to see the various levels of preparedness and equipment, communication styles as I’ve been doing this, and I’m happy to share thoughts and ideas today.
Glad to be here.
Ryan Mauer
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Hanson. Much appreciated. Alright. And and last but certainly not least, mister Ben Scudder, one of my peers and someone that I respect greatly. Ben, good to see you again even though I saw a few minutes ago.
Ben Scudder — Senior Solution Specialist · Singlewire Software
Likewise, Ryan. Thanks a ton for having me. And, folks, thank you so much for joining. I’m Ben Scudder. One of the solution specialists here at, Singlewire. I got my start at Singlewire almost nine years ago, as a software developer. And since then, I’ve made my way over to the sales team supporting our, great team and helping customers solve their problems.
So thanks a ton for having me.
Ryan Mauer
Absolutely. Alright. So we’ve got an incredible group here. I am not certainly not the talent.
There’s a wealth of knowledge, in this group. So, we’d love we’re looking forward to hearing what everybody’s got to say. So let’s let’s jump in. So let’s start with, let’s start with the conversation around the standard response protocol.
And both the framework of that protocol, what it provides to schools, what it provides to first responders in that shared language. So Pat, I’m going kick it to you to kind of get us moving here as we foundation.
Pat Hamilton
Sure. Well, the standard response protocol is an all hazardous approach to managing daily school crisis, know, the crisis that you face in your school on a daily basis. So it’s not just that active assailant. Of course, we have lockdown protocol for that, but we have other protocols as well.
Hold is a great example of that. If you’ve got a situation occurring in a hallway, maybe you have a a dysregulated student or you have a a staff member or student that’s having a medical emergency in the hallway. We just need to keep the hallways clear. No drama.
Just get everyone in the in the classroom, hold them there while we’re dealing with this situation. That’s old. Secure is something that’s off campus, not impacting you on campus. So we’re just gonna get everyone inside, lock the outside doors, keep everyone inside, tell the police give us an all clear that we can go back out and resume our normal outdoor activities if you’re in an environment that encourages such activities, so PE and and recess.
Then lockdown, I’ve mentioned that one. That is a term that’s widely used in not only schools, but also in other communities, and that’s one that we encounter, frankly, across the world. We’ve trained in Dubai. We’ve trained in the UK and Canada, and that’s a widely used term, and that’s when there’s a threat of violence very near you, inside the facility that you’re in, and you’ve gotta take immediate action, locks lights out of sight. That’s what we tell people.
And then evacuate, that’s kind of the original one. Pretty much everyone on this call, I would think, has been doing fire evacuation drills since they were kids in schools, and that one’s been around for a long time. So I’d like to tell people that’s kind of the OG. But so evacuation.
And then the last one is shelter in place. I grew up in Oklahoma, Tornado Alley. So we did our shelter in place was typically tornado drills or tornadoes themselves. But there’s other parts of the countries that might have tsunamis, you could have earthquakes, things like that.
So that’s shelter in place. So again, those five protocols allow us to manage nearly every type of crisis we’re gonna face in a school setting. And the reason we transitioned to that is the first couple of years, John, Michael, and Ellen, the first couple of years of the foundation, which was two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, they were going around and they were talking to law enforcement, they were talking to school officials about the biggest challenge they faced in their last crisis, and it was often the same answer, that was communication. Communication, communication.
And it was all different types of communication, but at its core, was, we’re all using different language for the same thing.
And many of us at the time, including myself and my district, we were using flip charts that were thirty pages, forty pages long that were flip charts. And all of those things basically said the same thing. You can hold in your classroom, you can shelter, you can lock down, you can evacuate, you can secure. So those are the We took all of those types of things, created those five common terms and now we go out and we talk to school districts, law enforcement agencies, emergency response personnel, and that’s it’s turned out to be quite successful.
We’re in seventy eight thousand schools across the country. Again, I mentioned that we’ve trained in Dubai as well with AgaCaN, we’ve trained in Canada. So we are hopefully on our way to international domination, world domination, we’ll see, But, we love the idea of people using the same language for the same things. It helps our first responders.
And, ultimately, what it is too is a Trojan horse, and we’ll talk about that later, what it really does.
Mike Hanson
From the law enforcement perspective, Pat, you just nailed it right there. Like, when you think of an emergency and first responders, police, and fire going to that, they already have so much stimulation in the squad car, fire truck, whatever, and then trying to navigate to get there. That is as much as we can keep it very simple with the same nomenclature across all the schools, school districts that is enormous for first responders who then have to address the problem that existed. Kudos, great job at I Love You Guys for simplifying it for our schools and first responders. That’s awesome.
Pat Hamilton
Certainly wasn’t you know, we we don’t we we tell in our training, if you go to our trainings, you’ll you’ll hear us say that we’re not experts, but we’re avid students.
And so that first you know, up until twenty twenty one, we were using the terms lockout and lockdown. And I remember sitting in a room with emergency management from Broomfield, Colorado, and John Michael’s sister, sergeant Waltz, we were all in there, and we were using lockdown levels one through four at the time in our district. Talk about confusion. And then I had another school in my same district, a different high school that was using code red.
So it was a lot of confusion. So when we thought lockdown versus lockout, that that would be those are terms of art, and everyone will there’ll be never be any confusion compared to lockdown level one through four. We were wrong, so that’s why we changed it from lockout to secure back in twenty twenty one. So thanks, Mike.
It is an important thing for all of us to be playing from the same sheet of music.
Asher Torbeck
And I know with lockdown, Pat, the term lockdown is so overused, and so for the schools to be able to get those five different things with different protocols that we can train not only our staff and students what that means but first responders as we just talked about but also our parents and the media and to have everybody understand that same terminology so that when they get information that there was a gas leak, they don’t say the school went into lockdown today because that’s not the appropriate thing and I remember back in the day being in law enforcement and and even as a school officer and you’d have lockdown, lockout, lock in, lockout, Goldilocks, know, all the things that just kind of cover the whole gamut. And now this just makes it a lot cleaner and easier to understand for everyone involved.
Pat Hamilton
Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that we’re already off, probably off script, Ryan, but I’m glad you mentioned Asher communicating with students and parents, because that was one of the pivotal things that we were doing back in the late 2000s as we were starting to explain to students and to our parents what these protocols were and why we use them. That was a big pivot for us and for a lot of schools, because up until that time, I think the information was sometimes considered tactical and it might be too much information, TMI, if we’re giving this information to our community. However, what we learned in my own district was once we started to the students about why we do these things and and basically encourage them to advocate for their own safety, they started taking the drills much more seriously.
Our parents, when we could give them the appropriate term for what was occurring in their school. So for example, a secure. Hey, there’s something going on outside of the community. We’ve brought your kids inside.
We’ve locked the doors. There’s nothing to worry about.
The level of panic that was occurring in our community for just routine activities went down immensely. So involving your parents and your students in communication and the conversation is super important. In fact, I’ll give my first shameless plug for iloveyouguys dot org. If you go there, you’ll find parent handouts in like over twenty different languages. So we really encourage people to communicate with your community what you’re doing.
Ryan Mauer
And for the rocket path, there’s no script here. We’re just rolling, right? Beauty of a round
Pat Hamilton
Beauty of a round table.
I just like to give you a hard time.
I’ll
Ryan Mauer
take all that. You know, one of the things that you referenced and I think, you know, between in that in that portion of the conversation is there’s this continuity of language, right? So there’s a constant, a consistent methodology.
And I think that’s obviously very powerful dependent on and really across all those audiences, right? My students, my staff, my community, my parents. One of the things that you know, it aids in then is that it’s it’s actionable, right? So we know what needs to happen or occur. So I mentioned, Tim, you referenced something when we were chatting about the idea that it’s action oriented. And, you know, as you think about engaging both with, you know, the protocol in your fifty five acre campus, How does that play out for you and your staff and your constituents?
Tim Patton
Well, I think in part, I’ll I’m gonna echo much of what has been said but I think first and foremost, what helps us to turn this into action is the simplicity of the model.
As Pat talked about, five clear terms or common terms or incident types.
This allows us individually or collectively to quickly categorize or identify threats and then direct us to those individual or collective responses.
That simplicity, I think, also equates to when we think about it. The model being easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to train, easier to get the learner to apply it to the subconscious which I think gives us a greater likelihood that they’ll be able to recall those lessons, those actions in times of crisis. And then also, I think less time teaching models equates to more time practicing, which is essential because we never have enough time.
I think second, and it’s been talked about this idea of standardization and the fact that we use this model across all of our emergency types or incidents. We have a shared language there. We have use across all incidents types. But we also get better role clarity and we understand what’s gonna happen from the other members of the this diverse team that’s gonna show up in response and so when I know my role and I know your role and I have a sense of what you’re gonna do, we have a greater likelihood of achieving actionable, effective teamwork and then, I find and I think the final piece of it then is in terms of the standardization, it allows for us to align our systems with our models. When we take decision making models, crisis response models, and we overlay them with our notification and our alarms and our technology. Now we have the best chance to have an effective coordinated response to something that’s gonna require all of us to work well together, effectively.
Mike Hanson
You know, and that’s awesome, Tim. And as you and I have spoke, like, one of the things that’s working really well in Singlewire with Singlewire Edgewood is just that immediate notification.
And I think that’s lost in the businesses I’ve seen and schools is how do I get the resources here as fast as I can in the simplest way? And the technology, I mean, the technology that is out there now for businesses and schools to take advantage to alert the people inside the building, first responders and everyone else that needs to respond to the scene is it’s evolving and it’s far faster than anything that we grew up with. And now it’s the next step is getting the resources in place to the schools, but then the courage to use these resources as well and keep training and practicing.
Pat Hamilton
That training and practice piece is a really critical part of anyone’s safety journey. And Mike, I’m always surprised when I go out and talk to school districts that have a lot of technology. They’re well versed in SRP, they’re prepared, they’ve got the common terminology down, they’ve had the conversations with their community and their law enforcement partners and first responders, but they’re not drilling because they’re a little bit afraid to maybe either see what’s really gonna happen or they’re afraid to use the technology in the drill. So I think incorporating all of the technology you have into your drills is like it is a critical component of this.
And if you if you don’t have a a drill functionality in the technology that you’re currently using, by all means, I would I would be talking to someone about how do I get that, and if I don’t have it, then I would talk to my local PSAP center, your nine eleven dispatch center about we want to you, we wanna practice this with this. What would be the protocol for us to call you in advance to say, okay, we’re gonna initiate this using the technology that we have. It’s not gonna show up as practice, it’s gonna show up as a real thing. But if you talk to them in advance, maybe it’s just they just need a call one minute ahead of time to say, okay, we’re gonna hit the button now. But whatever that is, you’ve gotta practice using the technology and you’ve gotta get people familiar with what the technology looks like, what it feels like, and how it’s gonna work when it’s in their hands. That’s a critical part of any of these plans.
Mike Hanson
Asher, you you have a pretty robust training probably more in the summertime with Middleton Police Department, don’t you? Where you’re really testing the technology and working with the police department hand in hand?
Asher Torbeck
Yeah, we we actually tested quite frequently. We do a couple drills a year with our law enforcement partners, but we have a system set up that we can have every single phone in our entire school district currently can dial a certain code and it activates all those systems, closes doors, shuts all things down, sends an automated message to nine eleven with an automated message that actually tells them what’s going on so that they have some information and then it also pushes out a notification to all of our district leaders on what’s going on, Text, email, phone, phone call and it’s kind of funny we do a drill like I’ll usually make sure everybody’s aware obviously but then they see how many things are going off at one time to really get their attention that there’s a problem.
And we’re also currently testing out the new wearables which I think we’ll get into in a little bit here from Singlewire but they’ve been fantastic. We get the same type of thing that we have on individual phones throughout the building. We now have a staff member can be wearing around their neck and they push the same buttons and activate the same things anywhere they are in the building. And then we can track them using our mapping system, which I think we’ll get to shortly.
Ryan Mauer
I think that’s a great segue. So yeah, talking through how to drill, ensure there’s consistency here, and then we talked about leveraging the technology that’s in play. One of those most significant pieces of that technology is, Joe, what you and your team provide. So I think it’d be a great transition to say, let’s talk about CRG. Let’s talk about what the mapping functionality, Asher, that you just referenced, what that can provide to us. Because we talked about clarity in message, clarity in role, testing to ensure that everyone understands what that actionable next step is going to look like. But Joe, would you mind speaking to kind of how your organization supports those focus points?
Joe Hanson
Yeah.
And an honor to be on this panel. What everyone’s saying, echo it’s about interoperability and being on the same sheet of music. And if any of you have ever had to listen to my sales pitch before, that’s what I talk about. In special operations, we do call it a common operating picture.
And the same problems for us are the same problems we have over here for school staff, public safety agencies. It’s not just one agency. In Dane County, it could be fifteen agencies that show up in the first twenty minutes. In order to effectively communicate, you have to have a way to communicate, radio, panic system, whatever it is.
You have to have a map to visualize it though, because confusion and chaos on the radio makes no sense if we can’t all visualize that campus and those individual buildings. And so that’s really what we built CRG around was making accurate mapping data. But the second piece of that is accessibility. If you were using Singlewire or I love you guys or whatever it is, the mapping data needs to be standardized and it needs to be accessible in those systems that you all are using, but also the systems that public safety are using.
If you call nine eleven, is your mapping data geo registered with a call handling solution? Can they actually see where that caller is? Is that the same map that the dispatcher is looking at that the, tactical commander is looking at or the incident commander or the rescue task force? So we’re just trying to put everyone in the same sheet of music so that we can save time and save lives.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. And I think our team might have that sheet of music that we can actually pull up here to kind of give a visual representation. And then I would love to kind of understand as we think about, you know, you know, know Ash or Tim, but when we’ve injected this process into, there it is, look at that beautiful thing. And it’s more than just colors.
There’s a lot more, There’s a lot of beauty in there. So, you know, Joe, as you as you think about that common, and I apologize if I get this incorrect, common operating protocol, right? So what’s the what is everybody’s common language, which seems to be a theme here? Can you walk through like how the how you all think about organizing this information to give a sheet of music for everybody to use?
Joe Hanson
Yeah. And it with the maps of the building, and then this is a reunification map kinda helping amplify what I love you guys is teaching. And same thing, we’re students, so we’re always learning. We do a lot of active threat tabletop exercises, and so I’m always learning, you know, what do we have in place.
But when you look at a map, it should be the same. It’s a piece of up to date aerial imagery. North is always up. We do put a grid system on there, and that comes into play more on the campus.
You know, hey. There’s nothing labeled in this field, but I’m on the northwest side in grid square a five. You know, simple communication. But if you don’t have that ahead of time, it’s not gonna be utilized during an incident.
And this allows us to even though we’re not familiar with your building, and honestly, even if you work there every day, an incident occurs and you’re on the phone or the radio, it is a lot harder to talk somebody else onto it. And ninety eight percent of the folks that are showing up are not familiar with that location. So this gives them a way to visualize and to be honest, it doesn’t matter if it’s a middle school, high school, elementary school, a building is a building and in terms of standard operating procedure for public safety, it’s the same as the military. Whether we were going after a small compound or a ship, it’s just a complex.
And so if you have a way to visualize it and communicate, you’re gonna be more effective with it. But that plan that you can have in your hands ahead of time, reunification is such a complicated part of the process and often the tragedy after the tragedy. But if you can hand that reunification map to a first responder and say, hey, we don’t need you in the building, but we need you at our reunification site. Site.
And that maps preplanned from the staging area to the sanctuary, to where do the parents enter? Where are we actually following a route to reunification?
But if that’s done ahead of time and on paper, anybody can take that plan and execute, especially when you have district staff that are meeting with them, liaising and we have that, the joint effort together.
Ryan Mauer
That’s excellent.
Asher Torbeck
Also the amount of things that you can do with the maps. So we talk about all these things in interoperability, but you get the the file and then we use the maps for all kinds of stuff. I have like large printouts that if we have a command post set up, have a large, you know, three by five foot picture that we can lay out on a table and everybody can look at the same things. You can also send those out into squad cars. We can use them for overlays and different things that we’re doing in school. If you’re me and you have meetings all over different buildings, you don’t know where you’re going, you can bring up those maps to see what classroom am I meeting in today.
But then I mean you could do it so many things with them, they’re just fantastic. We also overlay them into our camera system, so we have our cameras actually can bring up that image and you can click on the camera system right on top of that map so that you don’t have to try to find a camera, you know, in a in a system. You can just look at a map and see this is the area that I need to see. So, there’s just a lot of things that you can do with those things. They’re they’re fantastic.
Ryan Mauer
Yeah and I’ll tell you as a parent walking through the building when you see these maps on the wall, it also gives you confidence. So there’s a again, I’m putting the dad hat on a little bit, but I appreciate the leverage of the tool itself. Absolutely.
So kind of staying on this kind of path, thinking about a little bit around how, again, kind of building blocks towards where this whole picture kind of comes into play. You know, Mike, interested in, you know, from a law enforcement perspective, and we just saw three examples of different, you know, different school sizes, districts, you know, from an aerial view to Joe’s point, you know, driving all the way down to, to a view like this. From a law enforcement perspective, can you speak to the confidence or the information this provides? You mentioned earlier that you’re overstimulated, right? There’s a lot of things happening in an event. Can you talk about that experience as you compare it with some of this, you know, technology and the ability to see the the building itself itself?
Mike Hanson
Well, so so in most medium to large size agencies and school districts, between law enforcement agencies and school districts, you are gonna have in in a real life emergency numerous people responding to to this. And, you know, as Asher was saying, he’s trained with the Middleton Police Department, maybe the sheriff’s office, but the cavalry is coming in a major incident. And if your plans as far as your maps and room locations are already with the nine one one center, as Tim mentioned, maybe it was Asher, you can pull that up as a police officer right on your laptop in in your squad car. And
that is so helpful because the incident you take just take Edgewood High School, you have fifty five acres there, six or seven buildings. The incidents usually only in one building and the responding the first responders, the the actual ones getting there first, need to know exactly where they’re going. And we know that seconds save lives. So as you’re wasting time without a map trying to navigate a building that maybe you trained at a year ago or two years ago, that’s a waste of time.
These maps will describe exactly not only the building to go to on the campus but the door to enter. And then so that’s just the map side of it. Then you’re in the building and you got to go to room two nineteen, three fourteen, whatever it might be.
The technology that I’m seeing out there is just phenomenal to really triangulate where the incident is coming from. And what I’ve learned is the technology can pick up on key words, gun, chemical. It can pick up on high pitched screams, picking up decibels on where an incident is occurring and then triangulate to tell first responders and school officials exactly it’s, you know, in room three eighteen, third floor, west wing, and so we’re not wasting time trying to find out exactly where it is and that’s only getting it better and better as the years go on but right now it’s impressive how you know an incident can be triangulated to tell the first responders where it’s at.
Ryan Mauer
Thanks Mike. I think there’s you know you mentioned two things in there that I find interesting and give Mr. Scudder, some some airtime here because we, we want to hear from his perspective specifically on two things I think that are really interesting. One was that you referenced speed, right? Which is an outcome of good protocols, training on protocols, assurance that your technology in terms of mapping functionality, connection with local law enforcement, but that speed is really important, right?
And there’s certainly a portion of the way that the Singlewire products help with some of that speed. And then the second thing I think that’s important to note is, you referenced location, which is certainly Joe and his team are very much in the center of that. But location services and Asher referenced things like wearable badges in partnership with those dynamic maps. So Ben, can you speak a little bit to how you kind of this conversation and connecting all of these pieces and understanding those two pieces of speed and location?
Ben Scudder
Yeah, absolutely, Ryan. So I mean, as I’ve heard everyone on the panel speak to so far, this theme, as you put it, around common language, common visuals, unity, unification, All of these different sorts of, ways are kind of meant to say the same thing. Right? It’s a similar value that we have here at Singlewire.
Right? CRG provides that common operator, protocol. I love you guys provides the the common language and iconography. And then Singlewire’s products provide a platform for common communication across devices.
Altogether, they really serve one purpose, and that is to deliver the message and mobilize to manage the situation as quickly as humanly possible. And that location awareness that you get through those CRG maps is another component that also leads to reduced speeds.
Another another piece really that, again, is is applicable to everything that we all do is just providing those different modalities for actually initiating the system, whether that is a wearable panic button or some kind of automation on a camera, a variety of other types. Right? The speed at which I can initiate the alert once I know there is an event is, of course, another critical part to make sure that I’m getting the situation attended to as quickly as humanly possible.
Mike Hanson
Tim, you guys were working with from what I recall, you guys were working with Singlewire and no one’s gonna accuse Edgewood of being a brand new building. You’re over a hundred and twenty five years old from what I recall.
Any how’s the system interacting and and working as far as functionality and I know you’ve had some trainings there.
If if a hundred and twenty five year old building can do it, I I would imagine a lot more others can as well.
Tim Patton
Yeah. You’re right. You’re right, Mike. I think the the building presents and and all of our buildings present a a myriad of challenges that I think whatever we can be doing to get us on the same page, send this over and over.
Will will result a time. It’ll it’ll result in a in a more positive response of a more successful response. I’d wanna just go back though while we’re on this topic to something that Asher and Pat alluded to. I think the standardized protocol and its applicability across all types of incidents also allows for us to implement and utilize these systems multiple times across the year instead of just those one or two times we get to work on an act of a sale and drill. And so that all of those all of those reps in a in a medical emergency in a hole that we get to utilize these systems will help prepare us for that day where we have to respond to that greatest of of crisis and so I just can’t, you know, putting all of this together really puts us in a much better position and we still see challenges because we often tell the story from our own perspective and so whatever we can do to get us all on this using the same language and on the same side of an issue, puts us in the best position.
Pat Hamilton
we’re in this we’re in this time right now where it’s it’s been really fascinating and and and fun to watch the growth in this field, in this particular field, school security. And now we like to say community and school security because they do kind of live together.
But if we think about our schools in, like, concentric circles or layers, what AI is doing is it’s starting to identify a threat as it comes onto your campus, not once it’s already through your doors. And so, and then that notifies someone to say, hey, we think, you know, this AI technology is saying we’ve seen something that is suspicious. Do you want to initiate a protocol? And then that then we can use the technology that we have now around our necks or in our hands to initiate protocols. And so we are talking about valuable seconds here that that could turn into minutes. And like Mike was saying that the cavalry’s coming. And then the faster we can initiate that and the quicker we can get people into a position that’s gonna protect lives, whether that be for a fire, in this case maybe you’re evacuating the building or an active assailant that has intent to do harm.
The faster that we get into those protocols, initiate those protocols, notify our first responders, the more likelihood that we’re gonna save lives. And it is happening so much faster now than it did even five years ago and how those protocols work. And then to see, now to have the ability for whoever initiates that protocol to have them appear on a map to say, this is where that was initiated. I mean, all has to work together.
We used to have meetings with our community twice a year in my school district and we called them web of safety. So we really would describe this as a spider web. So the more strands that you have in your web, cameras, locks, could be film on your school entrances, wearable technology that rapidly notifies people of a crisis. All of those things, mapping technology, all of those things are strands in your spider web or your web of security.
The more of those strands you have, the stronger your security system is. There’s not one single thing that does this. It takes all of these things. Just like it takes all of the community as well.
So you can’t just have your law enforcement, maybe your local police department that is aware that you’re using SRP. You’ve gotta talk to your neighboring districts. You’ve gotta talk to your neighboring law enforcement partners, those emergency managers. It’s just the same concept.
You’ve gotta spread this thing out more and more and more and get more people involved. And the more that you do that, the stronger your response is gonna be, the faster your response is gonna be and more accurate your response is gonna be.
Asher Torbeck
Yeah, I’m glad you wrapped that up Pat as far as like communicating with other districts. So I’m on our County School Safety Committee, which means that all the school districts in our County, public and private, we can all come together and meet. We meet every other month and we talk about a lot of problems. So one of the things we want to do is align everyone and we’re very, very close. If I put a percentage out of maybe eighty, eighty five percent of the incoming schools here are aligned with SRP so that we can train our first responders and everybody else in using that common language so that everybody is using the same stuff.
Pat Hamilton
It’s important for it to all work together.
Ryan Mauer
Indeed. Yeah. I don’t wanna get in the way you guys were flowing there.
Pat Hamilton
Just flowing.
Ryan Mauer
I like it. Any any other thoughts as, you know, each of us thinking about speed and accuracy of response? Any other thoughts that come to mind as we’re on that topic?
Mike Hanson
I I was just gonna add, you know, hearing of the training and everything and and the need to train confidently with this technology. And Pat had alluded, you know, some people are reluctant to actually use the technology. And one thing, you know, you you can’t predict every single scenario. You can train and train and train.
But what training does, and it’s sometimes lost with people that have to do it, you know, this is our quarterly training or whatever. One thing that’s lost is the fact that it builds confidence. And so the minute that crisis hits, whether it’s something violent, a chemical spill, tornado, because you have some of your procedures in motor memory, your confidence just, especially your leadership, the people who I assume are on this webinar, the leadership confidence goes up through this training and using the technology and you can’t emphasize that enough police and fire and Joe with the military train and train and train because they’re having to deal with crisis on a weekly basis And now all of a sudden, the confidence goes up because, they know what to do.
Pat Hamilton
There’s there’s always competing interests. I spent twenty three years in public education, and I get it. There’s the core mission, deliver a high quality education. But if you ask your parents what they expect from the school day for their student, they’re gonna say, I expect you to keep my child safe, and I expect you to deliver a high quality education.
Many times, it’s in that order. So for all of this to work, I mean, it really is part of the core now of the work that we do is keeping kids safe. And so what we have to move away from is when we’re talking about, when we have our annual conversations about budget or we’re talking about maybe a mill levy override election or a bond campaign or whatever those things are. It can’t be and safety anymore.
We we we need to all of that spending and all of those things, when you talk about prioritizing how what your school year is gonna look like, it can’t be let’s do all of these things and safety.
No. Safety is part of the daily work that we do, and it has to be part of the daily work we do because there’s an expectation, not only from our from our parents and guardians who send their their students to us on a daily basis, but it’s also an expectation of your community as well, Whether it could be grandparents, aunts, uncles, it could be someone with no kids, but it’s just they want to live and be associated with a safe community. And that community safety, school safety, they all work hand in hand together. The thing that happens in your community on a Saturday night can easily land on your doorstep in school on a Monday.
That innocent fight that happens, I don’t wanna say innocent in air quotes, but that fight that happens in a hallway on a Thursday afternoon, that could land in your community on a Saturday night and turn into a big deal. So we all have to work together. And so it’s not and safety anymore. Safety is just part of our daily conversations.
When we talk about delivering high quality education to our students, it’s safely. We wanna do we have to do that safely or we lose it.
Asher Torbeck
Kinda had a colleague of mine, used the term, a lens, a safety lens. So everything we’re doing, we’re looking at it through that lens of let’s put safety at the front of that, like a monocle if you will. And then everything we’re doing on the other side of that, we’re looking at using that safety lens. So everything we’re doing within the schools.
Tim Patton
Excellent.
Ryan Mauer
Again, I don’t want to get in the way. All right, time checks. We have about fifteen minutes left. So, want to there are a couple of things that I was thinking maybe we kind of work our way through before we maybe knock down a couple of these, questions here.
So it’s a pretty serious topic, right? This is heavy stuff, right? So we all each of you, I respect immensely in what you’re doing every single day. And so if I’m on the other end of this and you know, we just talked about clarity of a message, training with consistency, role clarity, leveraging technology, and assurance that we can provide this response, that’s your point.
You know, constituents, community staff, they do want, they want to feel safe. If I’m on the other end, right? And I’m thinking, okay, that sounds, that sounds great. But where should I start?
Where do I start? What’s my foundation? How do I think about it?
I know each of you probably
Tim Patton
have a perspective, but I’m interested in what would how would you answer that
Ryan Mauer
question?
Where do I start?
Pat Hamilton
I can I’ll jump in on this one first because that’s a question that we get a lot at the foundation when people are considering implementing the standard response protocol or the standard reunification method. And oftentimes I will advise people, it starts maybe sometimes with a cup of coffee. So invite your first responder community, maybe a few people, maybe your fire chief, maybe your police chief, invite them for a cup of coffee and say, this is what we wanna do. This is what we think is the next best step for us in providing a safe and secure learning environment for our students and staff.
Get their thoughts, get their opinions, see how involved they wanna be in that process. Hopefully they’re gonna say, we would love that. And hopefully they even say, we’ve heard of that before. We know about the SRP because the districts all around you are using it and we’re glad that you’re finally here to use that.
So I think it starts with that, but really what you’re doing is you’re starting to have that conversation. And here’s what I talked about and alluded to the Trojan horse effect of the standard response protocol during my introduction. So we used to say that bringing the community together and bringing all these people together that typically don’t have conversations, you know, when we think about what we were doing twenty years ago in school safety.
What the SRP really did, and we, again, we used to say it was a side effect, is bring those people to the table to start having conversations. And those conversations then would grow way well past implementation of standard response protocol. Now we just say it’s the effect, building relationships in your community. Because once you have those relationships established and you have exchanged cell phone numbers with the fire chief or the police of chief, sorry, the chief of police, something’s happening in your community on a Saturday night, you’re likely gonna get a text message to say, by the way, this just happened, and now we want you to be prepared for that Monday.
So it’s about building relationships. Those relationships can start with something as simple as a cup of coffee and talk about we wanna implement standard response protocol, or we have an interest in implementing a mapping system that’s a critical mapping system, critical response mapping system. So whatever that topic is, a cup of coffee a lot of times goes long. I’m not even a coffee drinker, but I’ll certainly happy to buy a cup of coffee for someone and I’ll drink iced tea.
But whatever that is sitting down together and having that conversation in a casual environment goes a long way.
Asher Torbeck
I think Tim and I are positioned uniquely that we’re law enforcement and now in the school world and I can tell you from both of those lenses, law enforcement, they wanna do everything they can to keep students safe as well and so does the school. And so sometimes like we have those same things and all it takes is like you said a cup of coffee or just like reaching out email, phone like hey let’s get together, get to know each other a little bit and they’re gonna have each side is gonna have ideas that are gonna just make it safer for all your students and staff.
Tim Patton
Yeah and I’ll just add to that. I think if we if we think about who’s gonna show up on these days. Mm We we have a pretty good idea who’s gonna who’s all gonna be involved and who’s gonna show up. Whatever we can do to meet ahead of that day.
Asher Torbeck
Yep.
Tim Patton
Whether it’s around a cup of coffee or around the creation of a plan that we all understand and can implement our confidence and our ability to implement is a positive thing. So, just get to know those people, start that conversation, ask about what’s currently in place, and then chart a path towards improving that and certainly, I think the a standardized protocol greatly assist us in doing that in a timely manner.
Pat Hamilton
One of the things that we love to talk about and this was after after we had established long term relationships with these folks and we had a great, we were operating from a great place of trust But sometimes just asking a couple times a year to your partner to your law enforcement partners, what do you think our vulnerabilities are? And then they would turn and ask us, well, what do you think our vulnerabilities are in in serving the community and serving your schools, our our school resource officer programs? So I wouldn’t start off with that because sometimes it can be really painful to hear, but once you’ve established that relationship and you can trust each other, I think asking that question is what do you see as my vulnerabilities or my potential areas for improvement can be a great conversation as well.
Mike Hanson
Think Joe mentioned it earlier with just how we’re always evolving and just to dovetail what you said Pat, I mean just think of where we’ve come in the police response to acts of violence from twenty years ago, where it was hold and wait for SWAT and hold and wait for more officers. Now it’s to rush into the school. So when you talk about constantly evolving and talking to each other between school, first responders, it’s paramount. And Joe obviously knows that with the military experience as well.
Ryan Mauer
Ben, what about from your side in terms of, you know, thinking through the communication platform by which to kind of connect all these things? This is a leading question, certainly, because I work with you, I know the answer. But I love it. Yeah.
But I but can you speak a little bit to, hey, if I’m if I’m thinking about where, you know, where do I start? These are great first steps, right? And you come at it from different angles. Talk a little bit about the angle of the communication platform by which you’re going to start.
Ben Scudder
Absolutely. As mentioned earlier, Ryan, having great partners like we have on this call are, you know, perfect tools that you need to get started with InformaCast. Right? So many times I’m with customers.
Every single day, someone asks that exact same question. Well, where do I start? There’s all these features. I can send messages.
I can upload maps. I can look at my floor plans. Like, this is a lot. Right?
And that’s the reason why we always it’s cliche, but we always go with the crawl, walk, run sort of methodology. Right? First things first, we gotta get folks into the system, make sure that they can get messages delivered in their preferred channel. And as we see in this visual, right, get the dashboard kinda started off with those standard I love you guys SRP messages.
Right? As Pat, you mentioned earlier. Right? Of course, this isn’t necessarily going to be completely comprehensive for every single use case across as every single customer, but it brings you to a perfect sort of springboard to give you something to start with, test with, and then make it your own afterwards.
So by having those tools and that kind of baseline with a system like InformaCast or any unified collaboration platform, it makes it valuable immediately. And then again, gives you a sort of starting point to then build it out to make it your own, to make sure that you can keep your kids safe.
Pat Hamilton
Yeah. We really value our partners in this space because we we want to see the iconography that you’re using on your apps match what what students and staff are seeing in the classroom on their classroom posters, what parents are getting in their community letters, you know, a couple times a year explaining this is what we do. So all of that matches. It matches what the law enforcement partners see as well for those first responder agencies. Again, that comes down to its uniform communication. We’re all on the same page. The sheet of music looks the same, which is a really important part of any crisis response plan.
Ben Scudder
Same sheet of music, and, again, goes back to that speed. Right? The quicker the response is going to be dictated on that consistent language from start to finish.
Ryan Mauer
Yeah.
Absolutely.
That’s fun. I was on a I was on a a call yesterday with an IT director, Jason, out of, Virginia, and he would we were talking, love you guys, protocols. And it was, hey. Do you have iconography that I can that we can work with? Was like, absolutely.
Here it is. So it’s, it’s real world. Alright. So I’m gonna shift this to eight minutes left.
So gonna pull up maybe some q and a here, see if there’s anything that, you know, came, you know, to into our team directly or to that public q and a. I think yep. Alright. So here’s one.
Asher, you’re on the spot. Asher, what do your training drills look like and who are you involving in them? That’s a great point. So, what type of resistance have you encountered and what issues have you encountered?
Asher, what’s your take on those couple of pieces?
Asher Torbeck
Sure. So I’m assuming they’re talking about a lockdown drill.
I can talk about all drills but the lockdown drill is the most contentious, right? And you get some kickback from schools about not wanting to cause anxiety with the kids or not wanting to cause fear with the kids and the way we get through that is through communication with them, training them. I use a, it’s kind of lame I guess, but a phrase that drills are like seat belts, know, you start a drill or you don’t prepare for something thinking that it’s going to happen.
You don’t get in a car every day wearing a seat belt because you plan on getting in a crash, but you’re using those drills as just in case we have something that we can use. So, we use scenario based drills. So, if we are going to do a lockdown drill at a school, we’ll communicate with law enforcement, we’ll bring them in, we have our staff actually activate the systems that we have so that we’re testing them at the same time and our staff gets to hear what they sound like and the students get to hear what they sound like. And then we have a scenario built in so we’ll provide some kind of information or sometimes we’ll provide no information and see what their response is based on whether they know what’s going on or or the alarm just went off.
But like I said, most of the issues that we have with the or have had with with kickback is just around that like we don’t wanna be scaring kids with drills but I think the more you do them, the more you communicate with them and the more you explain them at those age appropriate levels reduces the anxiety there. As far as the other drills, pretty standard. I mean, we do our evacuation drills. I’ll be honest, I need to do a better job of including our fire department in that.
We talk a lot about including our first responders and I think that if you’re gonna do fire drills, you should have the fire department there. We’re working on that. And any other sort of drills, they’re pretty standard.
Mike Hanson
If I could just add on the on the drills. As at a school and you know, they they usually don’t have problems at the school and so they did their lockdown drill and they just announced that they’re gonna do it and it was in a classroom. But we know through a lot of these violent incidents, it’s during times of passing and lunchroom because there’s the most people in hallways and lunchrooms. So building the confidence to be able to do those drills during a lunch period and or passing time in the hallways so you don’t have anyone freeze and not know what to do.
And so we’re trying to push schools to do more realistic scenarios as Asher’s doing with in the lunchroom in the hallways and surprising the students instead of saying that nine fifteen a. M. We’re gonna do it.
Asher Torbeck
Yep. Yeah. We usually don’t help students with, what the drill is gonna be, but staff know. But, yeah, one of the things I’m I’m gonna start doing next year is what we call stop and think drills, where we’re just gonna make an announcement.
Everybody stop where you are. Here’s the scenario. Think about what you would do. Take a minute.
And then okay drills over, get on with your day, and I think that that’s going be really effective to just have for those same scenarios you’re talking about, if it’s you’re in the lunchroom or it’s passing time or something like that, just stop, think there’s a fire right now or there’s a gas leak, Think about what you’re gonna do. How would you get out of the building right now? Okay, you’ve done that. Now go back to class.
Pat Hamilton
I hope you heard that from my friend, Paul Tim, Ashley.
I
Asher Torbeck
believe I heard
Tim Patton
it and I love
Asher Torbeck
you guys.
I don’t remember exactly where I heard it,
Pat Hamilton
but I definitely didn’t create that.
I talk about it a lot at I Love You Guys trainings, but I always give Paul Tim a reference or a credit back to that. But our advice nationally, our advice is announced. Make sure let’s tell people what we’re doing the drill. Drills are about muscle memory and creating muscle habits.
It’s not to elevate people’s stress levels. There’s a time and place for that, and there’s a group that needs to practice that way. And that’s the summer times. So when we don’t have kids in the building, let’s invite our law enforcement partners in, our emergency responders in to have those kinds of drills because they do need to practice in that kind of environment where the anxiety is very high.
But with our students, let’s make sure that we’re just telling people, hey, we’re gonna do this drill. It is a drill. We don’t need to scare people. The other thing that I’ve been advocating for now for a cup for a couple of years is notify your parents too.
And when you do, let’s make sure that we give our parents some talking points. So in that notification, so we’re gonna tell our parents tomorrow we’re gonna have a lockdown drill. Here’s a couple of talking points for you and your students to have when they come home. So because these aren’t just school lessons, these are life lessons that we’re talking about.
So if you, you know, imagine yourself, you’re the parent, your student comes walking in the door, how was school today? Great, we had a lockdown drill. And you’ve provided your parents some talking points to continue that conversation at home. You’ve just made that a life lesson now, which is because, again, these are life lessons, not just school lessons. It all applies all the way through adulthood. So keep the conversation going.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. I think we got one more question. We got time for one more. We could be here for another forty five minutes, but I know everybody’s got lots of stuff going. We’ll put one more up here, and I think it’s really important because it’s yes.
So grant funding, budgets, grant funding. I actually wanna Joe, you your grant funding process for CRG is really impressive. I’d like to just I’d love for you to have a moment just to be able to talk about that.
Joe Hanson
Yeah. There are some state grants that are available. You know, that’s Michigan was primarily a a state grant, and there’s currently critical infrastructure grants there. Wisconsin, there’s still the DOJ, school mapping grant, which I believe still has money left over. That application is through the Office of School Safety within DOJ. Other than that, across the country, we do write a lot of grants, the BJA STOP grant, the COPS grant in coordination with the county. So counties can apply for those on behalf of their schools.
And if you’re sitting in an area that’s not mapped right now and you wanna see what that would look like, please don’t hesitate to reach out and we’ll see how we can collaborate.
Ryan Mauer
Excellent. We’re very grateful for that, especially because it provides an entry point for districts that they may not have access at this time. So it’s great. Okay.
Like I said, I think we could talk forever. I wanna make sure a couple of things to close this up. First and foremost, and it’s most important, thank each of you very much for spending the time with us. Every time I get a chance to chat with you guys, I just come to end of and go.
I respect all of your work so immensely. And I think the mission is so, so very important. As a parent, gives me great confidence to know folks like yourself are responsible for the topics that we just discussed today. So, for everybody on the call, so we’re gonna go ahead and send out at the conclusion here, an email with the recorded link, contact info.
So Joe just referenced, hey, we can chat. There’s there’s folks here, both Pat, Ben, myself from the Singlewire side, Mike, in terms of, you know, his expertise. You know, Asher and Tim, we’ll be we’ll let you just need to be, you know, mysterious, you know, figureheads at this point. But no, everybody here is available to talk to, and we appreciate the time.
And if there’s anything we can do to support you, your districts, in terms of just getting started, we’re more than happy to. So on behalf of Singlewire, thank you all very much for the time. Gentlemen, thank you for the time. Have a great day.