In 49 weeks there have been 45 school shootings across the country.
If a shooting were to happen in Allen County, officials at every school along with law enforcement have a plan in place on how to react.
And thanks to a grant, each school now has access to a cloud-based application allowing them to communicate with law enforcement with the simple push of a button.
The Allen County Safety Alliance for Education Committee was formed in 2018 when school officials went to Angela Murphy, who serves as the Director of 911 Services, looking for a way to form a relationship with public safety officials so everyone would be on the same page in the event of an emergency.
The world we live in today is crazy, but we would be naive if we were to say it will never happen here, Murphy said. This group is trying to be proactive and we want to be prepared in the event something does happen.
The committee consists of school officials from each school, as well as members of the Iola, Moran and Humboldt police departments, the sheriffs department, as well as the Iola Fire Department.
The group trained school officials on how to react in emergency situations. Murphy said one of the hardest things is to transition a teachers way of thinking from accountability to preservation of life.
Teachers respect school property and it is hard to get them to envision breaking out a window or sending kids in different directions without being there with them, Murphy said.
The group raised $24,000 in donations and placed stop the bleed kits in every classroom in the district. They then trained each teacher on how to properly apply a tourniquet and stop life-threatening bleeding.
The committee was able to get the school districts to look at a program called Lockdown a cloud-based communications tool which can be used by school officials, administrators and emergency responders which can notify staff members and law enforcement with the touch of a button.
John Johnson, the principal at Humboldt High School, brought the application to the groups attention after installing it at his school.
Humboldt schools went to the program two years ago, while Iola joined last year. Not all the districts were able to afford the application due to maintenance fees, so the committee applied for a grant to make it possible.
When we talked about this app our main concern was cost and we knew not everyone would be able to cover it. As a group, if one school gets something we want everyone to receive it. So I applied for the grant and I kept it a secret because I didnt want to get everyones hopes up. I was surprised to say the least, Murphy said.
They received a $7,800 grant from Enbridge while an additional $2,500 was given by an anonymous donor. With this grant each school within the county now has the Lockdown service through 2021.
This app has several features. Me, the fire chief, the sheriff, we can all issue a lockdown alert for any school at any time, and it goes to all the teachers at the school. In turn, they can push a button and it allows them to tell us they are on lockdown or having an emergency, Murphy said.
