The beginning of a new school year means welcoming a new group of students into your care. It’s also a time to reevaluate how efficient that level of care you’re providing really is. It’s no secret that the reality of school safety has changed significantly over the last several years. While we’re lucky to not feel under constant threat, serious safety interferences happen frequently enough to make us all too aware of just how possible danger to students and educators really is — and how quickly a normal day can go from calm to chaotic.
Let’s Put Away the Paper
Though the need for a new approach to safety has increased in recent years, many schools’ compliance with necessary changes hasn’t. With mobile communication so easy and accessible today, why are so many schools still relying on outdated paper safety procedures? Emergency protocols need to be accessed more often than some school leaders may realize given that they aren’t just related to what to do in the event of a violent situation, but also cover:
- what should happen if a fire or other natural disaster hits the school area
- how disease and other health outbreaks will be handled
- what the next steps are if an accident occurs
Can you and everyone else at your school who is responsible for keeping your campus safe confidently say they know exactly what do if any of these events happened at a moment’s notice? That old protocol binder only a fourth of your overseers know the location of isn’t likely to prove valuable in these situations. Neither do safety-plan posters that most people don’t notice. Your safety plan is no good unless it realistically reflects current safety concerns and requirements and gets the right information to the right people the second they need it.
Mobile Makes Too Much Sense
There’s no longer a sound argument for not turning to mobile solutions to help execute your safety plan. The overwhelming majority of people today — students, faculty, staff, and parents alike — own at least one mobile device. With such a large part of the population carrying a mobile device on their person, frequently checking in with email, social media, text updates, etc., why not utilize this convenience to communicate safety alerts? And not just alerts, but directions for how to proceed in the event of an emergency. It’s time to get your safety plan out of that binder and into the hands of those who are going to need it quickly and concisely should an emergency situation arise.
A Benefit-Packed Solution
The number of schools across the country enlisting mobile applications as a powerful line of defense in their safety plans is rising for good reason. With a solution like SchoolDude’s Safety Center™, gone are the days of costly safety-plan reprints and wondering how to get the information out effectively. Using Safety Center you, faculty and staff, students and parents can all have easy access to emergency protocols and be notified the minute a threat occurs, even when internet is compromised. Benefits include:
- a centralized repository of all your safety procedures
- the ability to update and push new content as often as needed
- push notifications and emails quickly sent to those affected
- incident reporting for users, including photos and GPS location
- unlimited users and downloads
- easy setup and usage
The use of mobile conveniences to keep everyone at your school safe changes the landscape of security in a way that can no longer be ignored. For further information, learn more at www.schooldude.com.
