School Evacuations
When schools have to evacuate due to an emergency, they are responsible for accounting for the safe location of all students and staff. During routine evacuations, teachers can look at their class and easily spot who may be missing. However, more complex evacuations occurring during non-routine times, such as during lunch, recess, dismissal, assemblies, field trips, specials, and more. Non-routine evacuations require staff to account for students who may not be their direct responsibility, making it difficult to quickly identify any potentially missing students. At the same time, evacuations during bomb threats or active shooters, may require a school to transport students and staff from their facility to an offsite location, account for their safe status, and then eventually release them to either a parent, guardian, or bus who will transport them back home. Evacuations requiring multiple accountability steps are difficult for schools to manage, especially during stressful and emotional times. Beyond, policies and procedures as well as standard drills and practice, a technology solution to assist schools in efficiently and effectively accounting for student’s safety will provide peace of mind to families, teachers, and administrators.
Pilot
Last month, Simple Tracking System (STS) was piloted for student accountability at a Northern Virginia school during a fire drill. Prior to the drill, STS representatives worked with the school to upload student files, including a school photo, for two classrooms. On the day of the drill, selected teachers documented their students after evacuating the building and arriving at their designated meeting point via the STS app. While Administrators were able to view student records as they were received in real-time, matching against the student’s file and school photo. Each student was successfully tracked and documented as safe during the fire drill. While the need to use STS during routine fire drills is probably not necessary, as every teacher knows their own classroom and students very well, especially towards the end of the school year, utilization of STS on a wider scale for student accountability has viability.
STS in Schools
Each school customizes their STS system to track and account for both students and staff during emergency situations. STS works with organizations during onboarding to populate a database of student and staff photos for use during drills, special events, and emergencies. On the day-of an emergency, STS runs via a smart device application (phone or tablet) and an encrypted cloud-based database receives and stores the records. Schools can utilize STS during routine drills to allow teachers and administrators practice with the application and database and to ensure everyone’s familiarity with the system when it really counts. STS matches students and staff with their database record accounting for their whereabouts during and after an emergency evacuation, highlights any students and staff unaccounted for, and tracks student releases to parents and approved guardians. While schools already have emergency evacuation procedures, STS streamlines these processes, making it easier to account for students especially since actual emergencies are never routine.
Interested?
If interested in implementing this technology in your school, please contact us.