Recording from Thursday, April 23, 2026
What This School Safety Roundtable Covered
School safety rarely fails because a school lacks equipment. It fails when the equipment does not work together. That was the throughline of this on-demand roundtable, where safety leaders from Axis Communications, the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS), and Singlewire Software talk through what a truly connected school looks like.
The panel — a former district security manager, a fire and life safety consultant, and communication technology leaders — make a shared case. Many schools already own cameras, speakers, door locks, sensors, and panic buttons. The gap is that these tools often sit in separate silos. When an incident happens, staff scramble between systems, and seconds are lost. Bring those systems onto one platform, and the response people practice every day becomes the response they can count on when it matters.
The conversation moved from strategy to specifics. The PASS layered framework gives schools a way to plan communication from the district level all the way down to a single classroom. Connected technology puts that plan into action, so one action can send the right message to the right people on the right device. And a phased, budget-aware approach — supported by funding paths like E-rate and competitive safety grants — lets schools grow their systems over time instead of replacing everything at once.
Throughout, the panelists return to one idea: technology is only as strong as the people and processes behind it. Plans have to be built, practiced, and refined. When they are, and when the systems supporting them speak the same language, schools respond faster and with more confidence.
The Panel
Chris Wildfoerster (Moderator) • Audio Program Manager • Axis Communications
Scott Lord • Solutions Consultant, ECC; Co-Chair, PASS Technical Committee • PASS
Jill Renihan • Education Segment Manager • Axis Communications
Brice Drogosch • Channel Manager • Singlewire Software
Grace Richards (Host) • Senior Product Marketing Manager, Audio • Axis Communications
Eight Key Takeaways for Building Safer, Connected Schools
- Connection beats accumulation—Most schools already own the pieces — cameras, speakers, locks, sensors, and panic buttons. The advantage comes from linking them into one system, not buying more hardware.
- Everyday use builds crisis-ready confidence—When staff use the same platform for bells, announcements, and daily paging, they already know how to use it when an incident happens. As one panelist put it: when the bell rings, you have just tested your emergency system.
- Plan in layers, from district to classroom—The PASS framework helps schools map communication across every layer — district, perimeter, parking lots, building exterior, and interior — so no single point has to carry the whole response.
- One action, many responses—A connected platform lets a single action send audio, text, strobe, and digital signage at once, reach the right people by location, and start a response-team meeting — without staff logging into separate systems.
- Directional messaging matters—Sending one message to an entire campus can send people toward danger. Location-aware alerts let schools tell each area exactly what to do.
- Reach every device, and lead with audio—Audio is the first line of response, but a complete alert also reaches phones, desktops, signage, and strobes so the message lands with everyone.
- Budget shapes the path, so plan for phases—Scalable, open-platform systems let schools start with one or two buildings and grow. Funding paths like E-rate and competitive safety grants can offset the cost across multiple years.
- People and process come first—Clear roles, redundancy, and regular drills — quarterly testing with a full annual inspection — are what make any system dependable. Shared standards like the “I Love U Guys” Foundation’s response protocol help everyone act the same way.
Connect the Systems You Already Have
Singlewire InformaCast unifies your existing cameras, speakers, phones, and sensors into one platform — so the right message reaches the right people on the right device, every single time. See how it fits your school.
Read the complete transcript
This transcript was generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability. Speaker attributions are approximate.
Grace Richards — Host · Axis Communications
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for attending today’s webinar, how to build safer schools with connected communication technologies. I’m Grace Richards, senior product marketing manager for audio at Axis Communications. Before we begin, I just wanna do a reminder and some housekeeping items.
Today, we are recording the session, and it will be available on demand tomorrow. It can be accessed using the same link that was emailed to you earlier today, and we’ll also send another email tomorrow with the link. I wanted to review a few of the icons on the right of your screen.
First, there is a q and a icon. If you need help or you have any questions during the live panel, feel free to type them into the chat there anytime. If you need technical help during the webinar, we’ll reply right away.
But for any other questions, we’ll review them at the end during the question and answer session, or or we will reply via email if we run out of time. Another key icon is the call to action icon. Here, you’ll find links to web pages with information on audio for public address, an audio systems assessment questionnaire, Singlewire’s wearable alert badge, Singlewire’s school safety solutions, and a link to the PASS website.
That’s the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools. The next icon has, links to directly down the resource icon has links to directly download flyers on the Axis Singlewire integration solution for public address and mass communication and a flyer on the Axis Network display speaker series. And lastly, there is a survey icon that we’d love for you to take at the end of the survey so you can tell us how we how we did and provide some feedback.
That is all for housekeeping, and I’ll turn it over to Chris, our moderator, to get started.
Chris Wildfoerster — Moderator · Axis Communications
Thanks, Grace. Hi, everybody. My name is Chris Wildfoerster, and I’m the program manager for Network Audio for Axis Communications.
I’ve been in the the audio business for three plus decades, mostly selling analog systems. And it’s interesting, when Axis recruited me about seven years ago, I was like, what does Axis want to do with me? I’m not a security camera person, and Axis is known primarily for security cameras.
And when they showed me the roadmap as far as their audio portfolio goes and network audio, it was very exciting to me. So I’ve been here about seven years and enjoyed my time here and look forward to helping expand the line and also the Axis audio into public address as well as audio for security. So on that note, why don’t we go into introduce our panelists, Scott?
Scott Lord — Co-Chair, PASS Technical Committee · PASS
Thanks, Chris. So I’m Scott Lord. I work with the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools and been doing in this technology for over twenty five years.
I think one of the the key things is when we start talking about emergency communication and mass notification, all the changes that happened in code that impact schools as well as other facilities. And it’s just becoming more and more important as we go through it. So I’m excited to be part of this webinar and thanks for inviting me, Chris.
You bet. We look forward to hearing more about that too as we get into the discussion. Jill, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jill Renihan — Education Segment Manager · Axis Communications
Hi. Thanks, Chris. Good to be on the panel with everybody today.
I appreciate it. I work with Axis Communications as the segment development manager for education. I come out of a thirty four year career in public education.
And for part of that time, I served as the security manager for my district and had a lot of systems that I needed to upgrade. One of the problems that I dealt with as a security specialist for my district was our audio and mass communication systems. They were analog.
They were old. They were struggling to keep up with all of the demands that that we had for its use and in particular in terms of safety response to incidents on campus. And when we attempted to manage that well, we struggled a bit due to the age infrastructure.
So these advancements that we’re gonna talk about today, they’re really crucial, I think, for keeping schools as informed and aware as they have to be during those critical incidences. So it’s gonna be a great webinar, I think. Fantastic.
Thanks, Jill. Brice?
Brice Drogosch — Channel Manager · Singlewire Software
Thanks. Thanks, Chris. I’m Brice Drogosch, and I am responsible for our alliance partnerships at Singlewire.
I, like Chris, have had over three decades in in the into the business. I’ve been in the video conferencing and unified communications as a service, etcetera. And I had an opportunity to join Singlewire in Singlewire Software in the product we have in InformaCast.
The reason I joined is because the whole mantra of our company is about keeping people safe in a form to save lives. And I think that really becomes critical, especially when we had an incident at my school, my own kids were involved in these kind of things and they were using Singlewire. I said, I really need to take a look at that company and what we’re doing and what we can provide to help keep people safe.
So I look forward to sharing some insights and look forward to answering any questions or things that you guys got in play.
Chris Wildfoerster
Fantastic. So let’s get into the questions here. So Scott, let’s start off with you.
So tell us about the Partner Alliance for Safer School PASS and what capabilities should schools have and really what’s the driving force behind PASS?
Scott Lord
Yeah, thanks, Chris. So Partner Alliance for Safer Schools was started in two thousand fourteen, where basically we’re looking to do is how could we put together some education and some guidelines for our K through twelve schools on how to implement security. You know, as as we well know, starting with Columbine and Sandy Hook and others, there is a lot of reaction to how do we secure our schools, but really no plans.
You know, Chris, you you know me as as the fire guy, and I love to go down the code rabbit hole. But that being said, there are no codes for putting in effective safety and security. And we’ve seen through, especially in the communication aspect where intercom systems used to be something that was required in schools through a code perspective when you build a new school.
But that actually started moving away when we started coming into the IP and the voice over IP realm. And now we’re rapidly seeing that kind of transition back to now this unified emergency communications is becoming important again. And so part of that is why PAS was created.
It’s a nonprofit organization where we’ve taken experts from the k through twelve, from law enforcement, from manufacturers, such as Access and Singlewire, you know, and really looked at taking that expertise and helping schools better understand how to do a holistic approach to security. And part of that is having that communication layer. So while PASS does not promote any manufacturers or any products.
We do have partners that align with our mission and vision, which is to try to make sure that we’re informing and educating k through twelve on a holistic and really strategic phased approach on how to make sure that they’re getting good security systems wrapped around their processes and procedures.
Chris Wildfoerster
Any comments from any of the other panelists on PASS?
Jill Renihan
Well, I would just say that, you know, when I was newly getting started into having all the responsibility for safety and security for my district, PASS was the was one of the first places that I went to. And it was very helpful because it helped me sort of assess where I was and and make decisions then about what we needed, not everything that we wanted. Right?
Security is not necessarily about the new shiny thing. It is about making sure that the systems we have in place work with our processes, work with our equipment, that they all work together. And PASS really focuses on that.
That it does focus on just not just door locks. Right? Not just it’s about the layers.
And, that was really a helpful document. If people haven’t checked out PASS, they they should. And it’s free to join, and the materials are free to download.
They don’t cost districts anything. It’s it’s a great value. Yeah.
I gotta echo what Jill was saying is that, you know, when we when we look at something like PASS, what it does is it helps you structure and and look at your framework of what you’ve got and how you want to be able to keep your kids safe. Right? Look at what you have.
Look at how it should be working together. If it’s not working together, look for something that can help fill that gap and deliver the type of outcome that you want. Because the outcome is I wanna get support when there’s an issue as quickly as possible.
Seconds matter, seconds save lives, and having a structured way to look at this is really helps simplify things, right? Because a lot of times people just kind of, oh yeah, you do safety drills? Yeah, did.
When’s the last one you did? Oh, nine months ago. I thought school started already, right?
It it it’s just things that you’ve gotta do that you you probably think about, but this gives you a good structured way to take care of this.
Chris Wildfoerster
Good points. And I think it also, you wanna respond in kind, right? So you wanna respond correctly to a specific event.
So Jill, so given your decades of experience in school security and safety, like how do you see or how did you see integrated technology improving your school’s ability to handle like real world incidents?
Jill Renihan
Well, it’s a great question, Chris. And when I first got started, we had every system was separate and it might require to manage a critical incident logging into three separate systems in order to adequately manage that. And then how is that adequate?
Right? The other piece, and Brice and I have talked about this a number of times, is that when we have separate systems, it’s not something we use every day. When we get into those situations and we’re not sure it’s going to work, whatever system it is, and we’re not gonna we’re not sure it’s gonna work together.
So when things are integrated into one unified platform and Scott mentioned this already, that holistic way of looking at school security, then when we’re in a crisis, it’s not so different from what we’re doing every day. And schools use systems like these every day. We make announcements.
We use our our mass communication systems to share what’s going on. We have bell schedules. We get those emergency notifications for all of those other things.
When they don’t talk to each other, things can be missed in those critical incidences. So build a platform, build one screen that people are working from, and they’re used to working on it. I saw people who even in drills, we, using panic buttons and hesitating to push the panic button because it wasn’t something they did every day.
So bringing it all together, it decreases response time. It increases the ability for other agencies to communicate together, and we could talk any number of these major school safety incidences and communication failures have been evidenced in every one of them. So that’s because they’re not testing the system at the crisis level.
Right? Right.
Chris Wildfoerster
Scott, are are there when you look at the past guidelines, are there specific time periods or are there a number of times that a facility or school should actually run tests?
Scott Lord
Yeah. We we recommend that they’re done quarterly and that you do a full test and inspection on your systems at least once a year. So part of what Jill was saying, if I can add to that, it’s just the challenge I think that schools have and even higher ed campuses of the fact that we have all these different communication technologies that we feel we can use for emergency communication.
But a lot of times we’re not looking at that process on how it actually works. So, you know, Jill had kinda mentioned either being hesitant to do the process or let me do this page here, and then I’ve gotta go press this button over here. And then I’ve gotta go log into this system over here to send my messages through social media.
And, you know, so those are a lot of things that I think the past guidelines really dive into of how do we look at making that process a little more seamless. And as a fire guy, I’m excited of what I see for things like, like Singlewire and Access of how we kind of make that connectivity happen. Because a lot of times, we still have a lot of our communication systems that are in our schools.
Let’s face it, the average school is fifty three years old. And so these communication systems have been added to and added to and added to as we’ve thought about different threats that we had to react to. And so being able to look at that and bring that all together and say, where is our process broken as far as or where can we save steps in that process by looking at how we can unify that technology?
Jill Renihan
I would just add one one more thing to that, and that is, you know, with analog audio systems, which has been the tradition and still exists in the vast majority of schools. But you don’t know if any individual speaker on that system is working unless you happen to be there when an announcement comes across. You don’t know even if it’s working, you don’t know if it’s intelligible audio.
And, you know, we’ve talked a lot about how audio is our first line of response to these kinds of events. Well, if you’re relying on a system that doesn’t know if it’s working And, you know, let’s say that a school has five hundred speakers throughout it. You’d have to be under each one of those at any point in time to verify that that’s working.
With network audio, you don’t have that same requirement. It’s it’s checking itself to know that it’s working. So we’re getting that information.
We’re using it every day. We know it’s working. We can rely on that system then.
Chris Wildfoerster
Thanks. So Brice, next question is for you. So what does a connected safety ecosystem look like in a real school?
Brice Drogosch
Yeah, it’s a pleasure kind of address this kind of question. I think what you gotta ask yourself is, does your current infrastructure allow you to to access different systems? For example, do your cameras, your radios, your door locks, all fire when someone triggers a notification, right?
I think what you got to do when we talk about a connected system is we got to find something that’s going to make it simple, reliable, effective, faster to increase those things. By connecting what you may already own what you’re going to be putting in to do all of the work with one button press is a connected system. So think about if I have a weather alert.
You know, I I I wanted to automatically trigger. I want to have a geofence around my building. When I get a a tornado warning, a fire warning, something like that.
I want that to automatically send out the notifications to everything. But not only just sending out the notifications to everybody in general, but also have a system that with that same trigger, I can also start a meeting with the team that’s got to address the tornado and have them be alerted at the same time. If your code says, need to lock down or get people into the bathroom that is the tornado shelter, have those kind of messages all automated so that with one trigger, with no human intervention, these things all can go out.
So when we look at it and we talk to our customers, we say, you really have to look at what type of platforms, what type of capabilities do you already have? And then how can I use them to meet my safety plan? How can I use them to make the ERP?
Because it’s kind of interesting in that poll question we asked, are you using your public address system? Someone said earlier that the average age of the school is fifty years old. They probably got old analog systems, like Jill said her old school.
Right? Why aren’t you using those in a critical situation? I think a lot of times, it’s people don’t realize that Axis makes a device that can connect to that analog system and make it part of the IP system.
So at the same time of hitting those IP type of devices, you also can get hit a zone controller, which can drive the amps of your current system and then address the costs. Right? I think that’s the other thing when we look at a a a connected ecosystem, we really got to look at cost, right?
Not everybody’s going be able to rip and replace everything, but why not be able to take what you currently have and put it into the system and have a system that you can phase in as you get funds or grow, Right? The the other thing is is is a connected system keeps you away from those siloed approaches. We got a lot of we got a lot of companies out there that’ll sell you a wearable badge, but that’s the only thing it does is I can push that button and their strobe will go off and that’s it.
What if it’s a medical emergency? What if it is a tornado? What if it’s something else?
I wanna use that strobe for other things. I wanna be able to send messages out through existing speaker systems if I push that button, etcetera. We really don’t want siloed approaches if we’re really gonna make this work and keep people safe.
The other thing you got is when you go to a ecosystem and again, to address cost, why not look for a system that can do your day to day stuff, your daily announcements, you know, buy your prom tickets or hot dogs for lunch or things like that But also does your bell schedule, but does your weather alerts? Also be the system that does critical management and critical notifications. When you do that, you can reduce cost and because each of the different lines of business responsible for those can use that same system.
And when they do that, as Jill had mentioned, in those those trials, right, someone was afraid to push the button, they didn’t do it every day. But if you’re using the system, the same system that you use to to page the front desk or or do other things, you’re not afraid of it. You know how it works.
You know how to use it. And then the other thing and I like to tell a lot of schools is when the bell rings, you just tested your emergency system. So that when stuff happens and something happens, you know that this system is gonna go off because it went off for the bells.
Right? We’re not gonna have to worry about it not working. So, you know, those are types of things that I see from this connected ecosystem.
Right? So if you think about what can you do? When I start looking at the ecosystem and be able to bring it all together, let’s say you got cameras.
Great. I was just at ISC West, and I would tell you that the number one question I got from customers visiting our pod at at the Axis booth was, I bought cameras. I bought sensors.
I got speakers. I got an overhead paging system. What now?
You wanna be able to find a platform that can be in the middle, that can bring all this together to deliver the workflows you need. So let’s look at the camera. You got cameras out in the parking lot.
If you had LPR or license plate recognition on it, and you see a car that’s been banned from the school or shouldn’t be in the school or is in the area where they shouldn’t be, why not have that automatically trigger a notification to the SRO or to the safety team, hey, that car is in the parking lot. You better go take care of that. And at the same time, lock the doors, put out a notification that you want to go out, have a directional notifications, make sure that you’re sending the right message to the right people.
Right? So one trigger can do multiple things. That’s what that’s the kind of thing that you need.
If you think about I think about directional messaging. Look what happened at Florida State University that had someone attacking a library building or or forget whatever building it was. They sent a message out to everybody.
Run. Meanwhile, people that were in another part of the university were running right to the guy with the gun. It should have been people in this area stay put.
People in this area run, fight, hide, fight. Right? Those those type of things you can do with a connected environment.
The other thing, think about sensors. Everybody’s got all these different sensors. You look at vaping sensors in the boys’ room or if you’re in Arkansas with Eli’s Law, have an audio in in the locker room.
Those kind of things. Well, those sensors, they pick up something. Now, what?
Well, if I’ve got someone vaping in the in the boys room, why not have a speaker in there, have an automated prerecorded message from the principal that says, I can see your vaping and then the person runs out of the bathroom. Meanwhile, you’ve activated the camera outside the bathroom. You can see who the person was and you can talk to him.
Say, look, you shouldn’t be vaping on campus and those kinds of things, right? So, you get a lot of extra capabilities you can by having a connected system. And then I also hear a lot about silent panic alert technology.
I don’t know how many guys do because I’m in Texas and that’s our Alyssa’s Law. You gotta have it. Silent panic alert technology.
There’s so many people confused about what to do with that. With with with a connected ecosystem, it’s not have just one type of button that you can press. You know, if you have lanyard buttons, great.
Right? Wearable badges? Great.
But what if the teacher’s out in the hallway? What’s not in the classroom? A button.
And those kids that are in there are at risk. So why not have buttons on the wall, shortcut keys on the desktop, a mobile app, a wearable? Right?
Have them all. Make sure that you have a system that can have the flexibility to have all the triggers that you need going forward. And then the other thing with a connected ecosystem is you want reach.
Audio has proven to be the most important piece of a notification, right? It is what’s gonna keep people safe, but you also wanna send the digital signage. You also wanna hit strobes.
You also wanna send SMS and text and things like that. You need to have the reach with your product. So to the end, you take all these components and ideas together, and the best thing is to look at your ecosystem of products and a platform and how you can bring these all together to fill the gaps, to meet your eco, your emergency plan, but also to adapt to what’s coming.
Because a couple years ago, we weren’t even talking about Alyssa’s Law. Now we are.
Chris Wildfoerster
Yeah. You want to see that you will. It’s unfortunate that we even have to bring this up, right?
But it safety, not only from, you know, threats from other individuals, but also obviously via weather threats and medical emergencies to put everything together. So let me go to the next person, Scott.
Grace Richards
Oh, let me ask the poll question first, Chris. Go ahead. We wanted to just see where everyone was at in their planning stages.
There’s a poll question that popped up. Where is your school in the process of strengthening its safety and critical communication plans? And there’s four choices you can read and choose a selection.
The first one is we’re starting to think about a plan and need some guidance. The second one, we have a plan but need help identifying technology gaps. Third, we need we know our needs and now want to have an expert guide us or consult to finish.
And the the last choice is that you’re here on this listening to this panel to learn how to get started.
Jill Renihan
I think just tying back to what we talked about, what Scott mentioned with past and and just, you know, to include what Brice was saying. The layers of that you you can’t rely on any one element. All the layers have to work together.
You’ve got to have a good plan. You’ve got to practice that plan. You’ve got to work that plan.
And then, you know, so you can you can actually respond to things in real time.
Chris Wildfoerster
Good point. So, Scott, let’s kind of circle back to pass here. So, you know, Brice gave us a pretty good layout as far as an ecosystem and all the technologies working together.
But how do all those technologies really work into the layers of protection and how do they really compliment one another? Because they’re not standalone silos, right? Everything, again, has to kind of work together and flow like if this, then that.
Scott Lord
No, I agree. And, you know, there’s a lot of stuff that Brice went into that, you know, most customers are gonna have to just kinda unpack. I’m gonna pick on Brice a little bit because I kinda feel like this is why PASS was created, is that there is a great concept of looking at how an approach happens and how everything works.
We really have to look back to how does that actually go into practice for our district, for our school. You know, we say a lot of times, if you’ve seen one school, you’ve seen one school. The cultures are different.
And again, going back to a lot of times our schools are aging, you know, the technologies are all that are different there. You know, Brice is absolutely correct on how do we bring those together more in a unified structure and whether it’s one system or multiple systems, but how do we actually bring those together? And I think the guidelines really help when we’re looking at how do we have that connected ecosystem, is really starting with the layers of security that PASS provides.
And this is no different than what we were doing for security before we even had to start talking about putting security in schools. But having that, ability to kinda look at your communication from a district wide level, from your property and perimeter level, to your parking lots, to your perimeter, to your building perimeters, and down into the interior. What we see in those, Brice had brought up some of the incidents that have happened in our K-twelve schools, who we’re speaking to are in different areas.
They may be inside a building, they may be outside of the building. You know, we have to be able to communicate with the community. So whether we’re informing law enforcement and what’s happening there.
So looking at that ERP and saying, okay, what do we have now? How do we look at doing our connected communications and what does that look like? And also one of the things that we feel we help with from the past perspective is giving you kind of a tiered approach on that.
Because Brice had also mentioned this is not something that you can just go ahead and say, hey, alright, we’re gonna have this system and this process across the district, have it done by August one of next year when we open school. You know, the that that’s probably not realistic. And so part of what we look at from those those tiers is looking at how can we look at these five layers of security and then look at how we can phase that in over time.
It’s one of the things that we look at from the security perspective is the fact that when we’re looking at this holistically and we’re looking at the fact that we have multiple threats that we have to deal with, whether it’s fire, whether it’s weather, whether it’s an active threat event, whether it’s a gas leak that’s in the community, whatever those might be, we’ve always been very siloed on how we reacted to those. And now we’re looking at how we can connect those together. And you’re having manufacturers, you’re having integrators, you’re having designers, no offense, Brice, that are knocking on your door saying, got the solution.
Here’s what it is. Just follow me. And a lot of times we’ve got to step back and say, what is those policy and procedures?
What is that human element? And how do we strategically do that over time? Because a lot of the things that Brice talked about, he’s absolutely correct.
A lot of our schools have put a lot of this technology in, but it’s not worked into that overall plane. And so, you know, when we talk about being able to have the vape detection being integrated with the with the camera system and things like that and having a talk down. You know, a lot of those things are can be done, but a lot of times the vape was put in because we either had funding or we had a mandate that we had to put it in.
And so it’s a separate process. So when we look at it from a layered approach, we can look at each one of those technologies and say, how does that fit in our district? How does that fit in our building?
How does that fit in our ecosystem so that we can help plan how we’re going to implement those technologies or take the technologies that you have and start to make that connected ecosystem.
Chris Wildfoerster
One other question that comes to mind as you’re talking, Scott, is how does that work into our budget as well? And and we all know, I don’t think there’s a school board or a school superintendent out there who hasn’t said at one time or another, school safety is my number one priority. Right?
But budgets don’t always go along with that. So being able to build systems that are scalable, that that don’t require rip and replace of everything that’s already installed because there’s a lot of technology out there. But vetting those providers, those solution providers to make sure that they can work with multiple systems, that they’re open platform and not closed so that people don’t get stuck, not being able to use it previously installed equipment or to add to or enhance their system, not replace their system.
Right?
Scott Lord
Oh, I completely agree. And I think that’s one of the things of the approach of looking at how different what we say at pass or kind of an open, infrastructure, open platform that your communications or any of your security systems use. How can they integrate easily with other systems?
Yep. Because we almost have to start talking about, I didn’t have to do this twenty years ago of what’s coming out in the next three to five years. You know?
This was an intercom system. It’s going to be this way for fifteen, twenty years. We’re we don’t have that anymore.
You know? Even video surveillance was that way. You know?
When I first had the first school district I did, we had a bond issue and said, doesn’t matter what it takes. I want all the security that’s absolutely possible. Took us three years to get it all done.
I was buying access cameras to put in on the last one that were two generations after the first building because I couldn’t get the first generation anymore. You know? So it is difficult when we’re looking at this.
And so when we’re looking at that connected ecosystem, making sure that you are asking what are some of those road maps? What do what does that technology interface with others? It’s one of the nice things about a a manufacturer like an InformaCast or an Access where a lot of their architecture is structured for how do we work with other systems?
You know? And those type of things make it valuable for schools to help leverage those costs that, you know, that you spend to be able to get the best ROI you can for as long as you can because we know that it’s gonna change. We know the threats change.
Right? I wasn’t talking about vaping eight years ago. Were any of you?
No. You know? So, I mean, the those are the type of things where it’s like, fight you know, it is difficult.
And I think that’s where the past layers really help of help make sure you’re kinda strategic and make sure it starts with that policy and process in those people. How do we want this to happen and then have the experts like a Brice, like a Jill, like a Chris come in and present to you how their technology can do that?
Chris Wildfoerster
I think it’s almost fair to say that the technology may be almost secondary because it really comes down to the people and the processes, right, and the tools and everything together as a package. Yes, technology obviously is extremely important, but you also have to have the processes in place. You know, who pushes the button?
You know, we’re all talking about, you know, mass communications and mass notification here, you know, in a controlled environment. But when, you know, when things go wrong, right? Who’s pushing the button?
What button do they push? How do they know where to go? Right?
I think that’s another thing that PASS also addresses, right? Who should be responsible for this? Is it a group of people?
Is it a single individual? You know, how does that work?
Scott Lord
Well, those are great questions, Chris, because if it’s a if it’s a single individual, one position has that authority. What if they’re out sick that day? Then no emergencies can happen.
Nobody. Right? The so it’s it’s there have to be redundancies.
What I love about passes the layers and the way that they talk about it. There isn’t any one solution that that addresses every single layer. And one of the often overlooked layers with all of this, including how to communicate during a crisis is training.
Gotta prepare people for it, and then we’ve gotta drill it and and have repeated efforts. And every time there’s an emergency, then that is an opportunity for us to practice and and test all of these pieces. Brice mentioned that, you know, if the bell schedule goes, the bell sounds, you know the system’s working.
Right? If you can hear that bell out on the football field or in the gym or the cafeteria, you know that system’s working. So those are the kinds of pieces that need to be there.
Chris Wildfoerster
Okay, thank you. I think, Grace, do we have another poll question you wanna throw up?
Grace Richards
So what is the biggest challenge your school faces when responding to safety incidents? Is it communicating quickly and reliably with staff, maintaining situational awareness across campus, coordinating response across systems, planning policy or compliance requirements. If you wouldn’t mind taking some time to give us some insight there.
And those poll should be popping up on your screen. If they’re not, there is the poll icon on the right hand side, and you can see all the questions that have been asked. If you didn’t have a chance to answer them, you can answer them there on the right where it says polls.
I figured I’d put all of our mug shots up there. The QR codes underneath, if you wanna get more information on any one of the panelists or the moderator, you can basically just take a shot of that QR code that’ll bring you to to get more information.
Chris Wildfoerster
So the next question goes to Jill. So again, given your decades of experience, where do schools struggle most when implementing a safety framework? And I think this is probably one of the most important questions because, you know, there’s so much to take into effect here, right?
Where do you start?
Jill Renihan
Yeah, great. I think it’s a great question and one that bears a lot of thought. I don’t know that I’ll be able to do it full justice here, but, obviously, budget is always one of those concerns when you’re talking public education.
Right? No school or district, in my view, has enough money to do everything that they would want to do or or could do. So there’s that element.
The other piece is that there’s increased pressure now from communities that the schools are thought of as safe places, physically safe as well as emotionally safe. There’s there’s a lot of pressure around that. There is I think Scott maybe Brice it was one of you guys mentioned that the like, when an incident happens, then something something occurs, and there’s sometimes some knee jerk reactions to those events.
And, oh, now I know I I don’t live far from Appalachia, Georgia now. And, you know, there was a shooting there a couple of years ago. The Monday after that shooting, there was an announcement in the paper that that kids were gonna come back to school and go through metal detectors.
It was after the shooting. So that’s when that kinda happens and things sorta get freed up. So what we wanted to do is talk with people and what I love again about PASS is it brings you to the point of being able to be proactive in your in your solution selection as well as in your implementation.
Those kinds of things help because, again, no school or district has enough funding to make all of this happen sort of overnight. And I I worked with somebody who who told me one time that he wouldn’t do I had twenty five schools in my district, and he said that he wouldn’t even start a project unless he could do all the schools all at one time. Well, that’s not very realistic, really and truly, then you’ll never get any of them done.
So it really you do have to look into and purchase scalable systems that you can deploy over time and grow as the needs of institution or the district change. The other pieces, people have to have training and they have to have practice with the solutions. Otherwise, what used to be true is one department handled all the fire stuff.
Nobody else could touch it. Nobody else could look at it. Right?
We all had to be in that realm. No. One other department handled all the cameras, and they didn’t talk to each other.
Somebody else did access control. Somebody else did PA systems. And they weren’t networked together.
It was not an ecosystem. They were absolutely in those silos. And so when a critical incident happened, again, people were having to run and try to manage four different systems in order to manage that crisis.
And that just doesn’t it it takes away time from being able to do that effectively and well.
Chris Wildfoerster
Let me throw out a general question to the panel here. Now, what about E rate, limited budgets, completing priorities, which you mentioned, and also what about grants? Right?
I know grants is a hot topic. So I’ll just throw that out as a general question to anybody to answer.
Jill Renihan
So if people all just address E Rate and then I think Scott and I both can talk about grants since we have an upcoming webinar. And we’ll be dropping in the resource panel or folder the the link to that webinar. That’s next Tuesday, the twenty eighth at I have it at twelve PM eastern time.
But E Rate is something that not that many people know about. It used to be exclusively for network development for student use. There have been some broadening of those limitations, and so now it can be used for Wi Fi on school buses as an example for cybersecurity.
There’s a pilot study going on right now. And additionally, that security devices can now hang on that same network that E Rate helps support. So that is a funding mechanism.
It doesn’t provide direct money to a district, but it does reduce the output of cash that they need to come up with at the time that they’re doing those projects. So that makes it definitely manageable. It’s grant season now.
Cops, school violence prevention program grant should be going live any day now. But we’ll be talking about that opportunity that specifically for technology solutions in schools to make them safer. It’s a federal grant.
It’s competitive, but we’ll be talking both Scott and I as well as a couple of other individuals on Tuesday. We’ll be talking more about that as well. Let me just interject here for one minute.
If you wouldn’t mind, there’s a polling question up there. It says, would you like more information about available security grants and the process for funding? So that is a poll question that we have on the screen.
I’m not sure if everybody’s seen that or not. Scott, do you wanna add something about the grants?
Scott Lord
Yeah. I think there’s something, you know, that Jill really hit on as we were talking and, you know, especially when we think about E Rate. Why was the E Rate developed?
E Rate was developed because the use of computers, the use of the Internet, that sort of thing was drastically changing how we could teach in schools. And so we needed it. We had to get that into our schools.
Was there a process on how it worked? No. Did we have IT departments in school districts?
Most of them did not. In security, we really were there, I would say probably about five or six years ago, where possibly even ten years ago, where we were trying to figure out how we fund it and how we do it. It’s kind of why the past guidelines were created was to kind of help give that structure.
And I think we’re starting to see that security is just as important as IT and how we’re going to make sure we do that. So having that approach to know that we’re going to have to budget for security. And Jill made a great point of having scalable solutions and starting with one or two schools.
I’ve seen the disaster of putting out vape detection to fifteen buildings and firing it up on August first. They shut it down on August second. You know?
Two years later, we figured out how we’re gonna fire it up in the high school and make it effective. You know what I mean? So we’ve gotta be very careful with that when we’re looking at it, recognizing that, yes, it is good to try to get that funding.
And especially when you can get the grant funding, it’s not like that has to be used necessarily in one year. You can have a three year program on how you’re going to do that and how you’re going to use it. So being looking from that strategic aspect of it does help you with that funding.
Chris Wildfoerster
Very good. Thanks. Thanks for clarifying.
So, Brice, we’re we’re running low on time here. I’ll make it hard this time. We could talk we could talk about this this stuff all day, right?
So, Brice, how should schools really think about communications during an incident, right? So you have voice, you’ve got strobe, you’ve got scrolling text, you’ve got digital display. How should a school really think about putting all that together?
Brice Drogosch
Well, what I’ve what I’ve seen from from our our customers is that, you know, you have to look at your ERP plan and you gotta look at as Scott was saying, is you have to look at what you got available. The whole idea is you want to be able to communicate a message out fast, reliably, and clear. And clear can you, you know, you typically you want to make sure that you’re doing something that’s prerecorded because in times of crisis, it’s hard to get a concise message out.
You wanna get it out in the right time. You gotta get it out as quick as possible and get support there as quick as possible. Seconds save lives.
Right? And you also wanna be able to send messaging to the right people at the right time. Right?
So one message to to the masses, one message to a text to the parents, one message to the PSAP, right? Or the E nine one one centers, those kind of things. You gotta make sure that you you’re you’re executing on a plan that’s going to be able to get all of these type of messaging out to the right people at the right time.
One thing I would also say and it was in one it was in one of the questions was look at following that I love you guys protocol. Someone had asked, is blue police? Is red this?
Is that? I love you guys protocols define those and and trying to get buy in from all the nationwide schools. That way, if a teacher leaves one district, goes another district, it’s the same icon.
It’s the same color. It’s the same message. It’s the same instruction.
It’s a good it’s a good guide to take a look at to simplify that task, right? And help keep a consistent, simple language for everybody to understand. And the last thing I would say is drill, drill, drill.
As you as you do drills, you build the confidence and the familiarity with the system and that’s going to help keep people safe. I would look for some there there are plenty of products out there. We have one.
Other people have them that can manage your drills. It can keep records for your compliance. Right?
Those kinds of things. Those become really helpful. You you take a look at those.
They’re not that expensive and they can help you with the help you with the implementing a drill cadence that’s going to help you.
Chris Wildfoerster
So, Scott, so what practical first steps, right, should schools take to really evaluate their capabilities?
Scott Lord
Well, Chris, you know I’m biased, but I think the the quickest and easiest way to do it is to download the checklist for the past guidelines and go through the component that’s the communication section that starts right at that district wide layer and works its way down. Only because that will help kind of just provide that overall looking at that overall approach on what you’re seeing. And I think what would be interesting with that is even if you don’t use that, just looking at what do we say from a district perspective, now let’s go to the high school and see how that’s put in practice.
Ask the person at the main office, so what is it you do for a weather emergency? Go to the elementary school and ask them the same question. More times than not, I get three different answers.
So I have the ERP that the district showed me, I have how they figured it out in the high school and how the elementary figured it out for their ecosystem. And some of that has to do with technology. Some of that just has to do with the culture that’s there.
And so, you know, looking at it from that aspect, in my opinion, allows you to really kind of grasp and get your hands around. This is the way we’re using communication, these are the systems we have, now how do we start looking at bringing those all together? And probably finding a trusted advisor that might be able to help you with that, like a Jill who, you know, has been in the schools before and is available to be able to let you know what is available and what’s out there, you know, as well as a Brice or or Chris, you know, to to do that.
I do recommend that they’re past partners because more times than not, they have those resources that they give to the schools just to make sure you’ve got a good understanding and approach that you should have.
Chris Wildfoerster
Good point. Well, the common theme here is definitely IT needs to be involved. There’s there’s no question about that.
Yes. So when we talk about solutions here, Jill, what what is what is this slide kinda kinda kinda talk about?
Jill Renihan
Well, when I look at this slide, I think about all of those systems working together so that there is that unified platform that we talked about so that when because drills are great and we need to do, I think, in my opinion, more practice rather than less But when people get under stress, they kind of forget some of those things. They got to practice with a little bit of stress, but when they have a system that connects all of the devices that we’ve been talking about today, The camera gives us some data about somebody being there with bad intention. The audio products are connected in the same platform so we can talk to the right people at the right time with the right information so their response is better.
You know, we if we don’t have all of these systems working together, then again, we go back to silos even if the even if we don’t think we have. So if you use an access camera station system or a Milestone or a Genetech and we have, you know, a system like Singlewire InformaCast that brings all of the audio products in and gives us one place to have those communications from to get it to exactly who it needs to be. That’s when things work the best.
And again, give us back all of those seconds that we need in order to intervene before the the tragedy goes further than it needs to go. Right? You know, we can’t always prevent every single tragic situation on our campuses, but we can respond in the best way possible.
And when our platforms are unified, that gives us the best chance to do that. And when the analog systems we had in the past, right, they were all operating in silos because the network wasn’t as as strong it is or dependable on as as it is today. But given today’s reliability, flexibility, scalability in the network, everything really needs to kinda work in concert together, whether it’s right, whether it’s audio, whether it’s video, VMS, access control, you know, body worn cameras, whatever it might be.
Everything really needs to work work together. So I know we’ve got five minutes and forty seconds, thirty eight seconds left. So, Grace, do we have any questions in the group there?
Grace Richards
Before we go into a quick q and a session, we wanted to ask, would you like more information via email or to be contacted by a past representative, an access representative, or Singlewire representative. And there’s choices below, and you can choose more than one answer. And if the poll didn’t pop up on your screen, you can find it on the right by clicking on polls.
Also, you could start thinking about any questions you have and typing those into the q and a icon area on the right. We could take a look at what questions we have and answer those in just a few seconds.
Brice Drogosch
Yeah. Grace, I saw one on there on, you know, can we look at analog and older systems and get them you know, can we leverage those? And there are a lot of opportunities with a lot of the IP technology, such as what Access provides and what InformaCast provides, so being able to leverage a lot of that.
Kind of back to me being the old fire guy, one of the code things is in some of our schools, we’ve had to update it to be mass notification. We also use it for bell schedules. We use it for all page.
We use it for weather because we can interface with that system. A lot of the fire guys don’t know that, but those can be easily done because of a lot of the, advances that companies have done in the IP standpoint for us to be able to interject into those systems. So if you have an older system, I can almost guarantee that it can be leveraged in some way, shape or fashion.
Do we have any other questions in there, Grace? I saw one about connecting older equipment into some of the the newer systems to gain the the benefits of the newer systems? I think that’s Scott, is that that’s against the question.
That? Okay. Well, I don’t know if everyone can look in and look at the the questions.
I just thought we’d answer it verbally out loud. Yeah. That was the one I was looking at, Grace Oh, okay.
That we just talked about. Yep. Then somebody asked about a link to the webinar, and that’s been posted in the chat as well and in the q and a.
Chris Wildfoerster
So a a general question out here that I have is that, you know, when you look at the master format, you’re looking at div twenty eight and div twenty seven. So div twenty eight is typically security, right? And security associated activities and equipment.
And DIB twenty seven is communications. So when we talk about mass notification, it kind of straddles those two master format divisions. So a general question, I guess, to the panel is, how do how do we reconcile that?
Scott Lord
It’s a great question coming from the goat guy. So, to be to be honest, you know, I know CSI is actually looking at some of those things because, it has changed. You know, division twenty eight really was kind of more on that life safety side.
So if they said mass notification, it was per what the fire codes were for, you know, and intercom and intercommunication systems and addressable paging systems or IP paging systems are all in division twenty seven. So, a lot of if when, our educators and our and that sort of thing, when they are building schools, one of the things to make sure of when you’re working with the architects and engineers because that is difficult is helping show them what you see that connected ecosystem to be. So if I have to have a voice evac fire alarm system, how does that interface with how I’m going to do a weather alert?
You know? And how does that affect where what what division or what system that we’re talking about that might be in division twenty seven so that those can be referenced so that that division twenty seven specification area can reference the mass notification specs section in division twenty eight as well as having keyed notes on the drawings because we usually have a fire alarm drawing or a life safety drawing, and we have a telecommunications drawing. So, you know, being able to have those reference helps give the the schools a chance that, you know, it’ll happen after midday.
I hate to tell you this, but it’s gonna happen after midday when you’re implementing that those start coming up. But if you bring those up and your specs are designed to have kind of that open architecture that they can, you know, be able to integrate with other systems, a lot of times those can be solved.
Chris Wildfoerster
I should have known better than to ask the code guy that question. Alright. I think we got about twelve seconds left.
Grace Grace, you wanna close this out?
Grace Richards
Sure. Thank you. Well, we’d like to thank you all for joining us today.
We appreciate your time that you spent with us. We hope this webinar gave you a good overview of school safety communication solutions and tips for integrating with public public address and mass notification systems. And like I said, if you have time for the survey on the bottom of your console or it’s also on the right to just give us feedback and help us for planning future webinars.
You can also connect with our speakers on LinkedIn using their QR codes. We can put that back up for a second, or I think we’ve added up there probably enough today. But we appreciate your time, and we look forward to helping you with any of the questions that you have.
And we look forward to seeing you and having you join us again soon.
Chris Wildfoerster
Thank you everyone, and thank you to our our speakers and presenters today. I think there were great discussions, and I know I learned a few things. I hope everyone else did too.
So thank you all very much. Yes. Thank you.
And we’ll be at Infocom. What’s our booth number, Grace? Nine three two eight in central hall.
Fantastic. Thank you. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, everybody. Be safe.