School system to install 'panic buttons' for emergency response | 01.29.2007 | 06:18:15 | Views: 5652 | ID: January 29 '07: To connect local Phoenix schools with law enforcement officials, the Phoenixville News reported that schools will now be equipped with a "panic button" that can alert police officials to a disaster. Local officials said the button was a "100 percent" improvement over current real-time information sharing. At a Montgomery County school in front of 75 "members of the county's public safety community and school systems ... [who witnessed] a demonstration of the panic button system that the county intends to install in each of the county's approximate 650 public, private and parochial schools, day-care centers and nurseries," the paper reported. Lower Merion Police Superintendent Joseph Daly said, "Right now no such alert system exists. ... Right now as I stand here, I have no way of knowing if something is going on at a school. Even just getting an alert telling me that something is going on is 100 percent more information than I possess right now." The panic button, when pressed by a school official or faculty, would alert the local 911 system, local reporters and emergency responders to the situation or emergency through the Community Law Enforcement Alerting System (CLASS). Advisory committees to determine the protocols and guidelines for the system's use are being formed while the technology is being fined tuned, the Phoenixville News reported.
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