COLUMBIA, S.C. — Following the recent increase in violence at schools across the country, many parents are left fearing the worst for their children. So one South Carolina Midlands school district is making a million-dollar investment in security.
The thought of her daughter being trapped in school during an act of violence is a daily fear for Dwan Cooper. She has a six-year-old at Blythewood Elementary School.
"Thinking every day when I drop her off, 'Am I going to pick her up the same way that I dropped her off?' That's my only kid," she said.
She said events across the country including the recent school shooting in Tennessee that took the lives of 3 children have her wishing more could be done. It's a similar worry for educators according to Richland Two's Interim Superintendent Nancy Gregory.
"Safety and security is something that you always worry about and you hear so much in the news recently," Gregory said. "We are the guardians of the children that come to us."
She said that was the motivation behind a $940,000 partnership with the Atlanta-based tech company Centegix. It produces a crisis response system in which staff members can alert law enforcement and resource officers of an emergency immediately.
Will Anderson, Richland Two's chief operations officer, said that current protocols are outdated.
"If we have an issue in-classroom in one wing, we would follow the protocol of a lockdown," Anderson said. "But you're trying to scramble for a phone, you're trying to yell at people. Are you getting the message to the people on the other side of the school? Yes, but that may take five minutes."
In this new system, every staff member throughout the district will receive a credit card-sized device that can be worn around the neck or on a key chain. With just a few clicks, it sends an alert to the resource officer, the school public address system, and law enforcement. The location of that device will also be mapped.
Anderson said that a certain number of clicks will alert the school of a less serious emergency, but, with more clicks, a full lockdown will be triggered.
"Any active shooter situations, they'll tell you, it's all about time," he said. "The faster they can respond, the faster people can be safe, behind locked doors, the more lives we can save."
Though he said this is the first school district in the state with this type of technology, Richland Sheriff Leon Lott said he is working with other districts to get similar potentially life-saving equipment.
"Seconds count - it's not minutes, it's seconds," he said. "And this eliminates a lot of seconds to get a response very quickly to a situation so it makes me feel good."
Money for the new program comes from the district's emergency relief fund and will work on a three-year subscription.