Alyssa’s Law

We have all heard about tragic events at schools, universities, and workplaces. When a threat to life and safety occurs, how we react and how quickly we react matters. Technologies are available today that can enhance emergency preparedness and the ability to communicate with large numbers of people in an emergency or crisis, including external emergency resources.

Alerting and getting law enforcement and emergency responders to the scene fast can reduce the possible number of potential victims, minimizing the overall threat impact. Prompt action can also help to restore students’ faith in the safety of their schools.

Alyssa's Law is critical legislation designed to address the issue of response time during emergencies at public elementary and secondary schools. This law is named after Alyssa Alhadeff.  Alyssa was a 14-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school in Parkland, Florida and was one of the victims of the February 14, 2018, tragic mass school shooting. 

Alyssa’s law is being implemented on a state-by-state basis, which results in a variation of requirements. Each state has its own requirements for this silent panic alarm system. Elements that have appeared in one or more laws include:

• Silent panic button
• Connection to multiple emergency services communications
• Real-time communication between first responders and responding agencies
• Integration with any pre-existing public safety answering point infrastructure (PSAP) to ensure municipalities dispatch the appropriate resources when 911 is called
• Transmission of all 911 calls and mobile activations

I think we all would agree that pressing a button to dial 911 is the minimum we should do.  We need more than a call to 911, especially if the person who activated the call is unable to speak. The faster the response the better the outcome. To achieve the best response, public safety personnel need to know as much as possible about the threat, and the ability to notify the entire school faculty, staff, and students quickly through multiple media streams with instructions or actions to take. Administrators need to know when emergency notifications are made from anywhere in their facility, including calls to 911, as well as any button presses for emergencies. They need to know who is in their buildings and who is not, including, students, employees, vendors, and visitors. An example application is with Cisco’s new 9800 series handsets as they can solve this with their built-in panic button. Further, enhanced 911 calls from Cisco 9800 series phones will pass the phone location to the PSAP, making this critical information available to first responders so they can promptly locate the exact location of the calling party.

For public safety communication, having pre-configured messages or codes transmitted via multiple channels can make an enormous difference in the ability to respond to a threat. The notifications within the school could include text messages, overhead paging announcements, messages on digital whiteboards and signs with notifications of what actions to take.  All these notifications need to work seamlessly with regular communications in the schools – like bell schedules and paging systems, otherwise confusion during an emergency could occur with contradictory communications from disparate systems.

Safety automation solutions from ePlus can help schools react quickly and efficiently in a threat situation with their emergency plans, enabling authorities and emergency services to be summoned quickly. Our readiness solutions integrate voice and unified communications systems, visitor check ins, and the SIS (student information) system directly with school emergency notifications, panic button alerting and communications to emergency services to create a central hub for critical communications. 

If you are interested in learning more about our Safety Automation Solutions, please reach out to ePlus to see how we have helped other schools be prepared for the unexpected.