St. Paul Lutheran employees given panic alarms

With a view toward increased student safety in an age of constant news about school shootings and attacks, St. Paul Lutheran School in Jackson demonstrated its new mobile panic-alarm buttons Wednesday aimed at speeding up law enforcement response time. And there are enhancements to come as funding becomes available, principal Tim Mirly said.

The alarms, worn on lanyards around the necks of school employees, transmit an extended wireless signal that reaches across the campus, as well as several blocks from school -- indoors and out, a news release said.

Lauren Anne Cole, corporate account manager of The Rite Group in Jackson, who works with schools across Missouri and Illinois, said officials regularly use words such as "panic alarm" and "lockdown" in talking about what they want for security. However, things they want were not affordable.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., site of the shooting of 20 students and six adults, has installed panic alarms, but Cole said they ranged from $300 to $800 each and are glued to a wall or under a desk and not really accessible from anywhere "when really the attacks are coming from the outside in."

"So the faster we can get that communicated, the response time goes down significantly," Cole said.

Luke Mirly, a fifth-grader at the school and no relation to the principal, said thinks the new alarms are a good idea.

"It makes me feel a lot of safer now that we have a new security system," Luke Mirly said.

Tim Mirly said the school spent about $5,000 on the alarms, which was raised through donations. St. Paul would like to upgrade and that will require more fundraising, but the principal said the community is quite receptive.

The panic alarm installed recently delivers two alert levels:

* At the first alert level, the release said, any school employee may briefly activate their mobile panic alarm sending a silent wireless signal alerting school administrators in the school office that a dangerous condition may exist. Once confirmed, administrators can initiate an automatic school lockdown and alert the Jackson Police Department using their Police Panic Button, the release said.

* At the second alert level, once a clear danger is seen anywhere on campus, any employee can activate their mobile panic alarm for 10 seconds and the system will automatically elevate its alert code, simultaneously activating a siren -- which sounds similar to a police siren -- an automatic school lockdown and notifies Jackson police.

Cole said St. Paul has taken a four-pronged approach to security, starting with the panic alarm. The next step will be putting access control with video call boxes on the school's four main entrances.

" ... In that case, the rest of the doors on campus can remain locked. They can't now because there's no way to communicate from the front door to the main office and let people in and out, so that's an important step," Cole said.

Phase 3 would be an update of the video surveillance system. Most schools, Cole said, have an analog system, which doesn't include facial recognition, zoom capability or remote access.

"The video surveillance system and the access control system will actually have apps on them that can remotely control the systems, which means that if there is a situation on campus, police from a cellphone can lock and unlock doors. They can also see the cameras and manipulate the images, and it just gives them more power to work," she said.

"The fourth phase will be to add another 12 doors to the system. The teachers will have key fobs that they can click in and out and that give them the ability to lock the school down," Cole said.

Four entrances are now on the system and Cole said adding more doors means putting more access control in place. "We will have readers in cards or key fobs," she said. This will also create a record of who's coming in and out of the buildings.

Most schools, she said, operate on keys, so if one is lost, the whole batch is bad because it can't be canceled and can be copied. It also costs about $1,000 to re-key a school.

Jackson police chief James Humphreys said the alarm system is helpful for everyone. He said there hasn't been a threat in Jackson schools that has risen to the level where these types of alarms or duress alarms have to be used.

"And we hope we never have to, so, so far, so good," Humphreys said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

216 S. Russell St., Jackson, Mo.