Leadership Matters November 2013

School safety seminars set for Carbondale and Barrington  IASA and CrisisGo are partnering to put on one-hour school safety seminars on Thursday, November 14 at 9 a.m. in the Media Center at the Carbondale Community High School and Tuesday, November 19 at 2 p.m. in the Guidance Resource Center at Barrington High School. The seminars will include a demonstration of a new emergency response app for school administrators, faculty and staff members and is open to school administrators, legislators and the media. The program will include remarks by IASA Executive Director Brent Clark, a presentation of how the app is relevant to school districts by Jeff Arnett, chief communications officer for the Barrington 220 School District and an overview of the app by CrisisGo President/CEO Jim Spicuzza. “The safety of students, faculty and staff trumps everything else and when I saw the CrisisGo plan for the first time I knew from my years as a school administrator that this app was a really good idea whose time has come,” said Clark, whose career included being a teacher and principal as well as being a superintendent in three different school districts before becoming the head of IASA, the state’s largest association for school administrators, in 2006. “The challenge of old-model crisis planning has always been making the bulky three-ring binder approach more useful for administrators, teachers and staff. The CrisisGo app simplifies crisis communication by creating faster ‘finger-tip’ access to resources and information in an emergency,” said Arnett, who has been advising the app designers. The Barrington all-hazards emergency plan has served as a pilot project during the developmental phase. The seminars are free of charge. Anyone wishing to register for one of the seminars may do so by contacting Mary Ellen Buch at mbuch@iasaedu.org or by calling her at 217-753-2213. New school crisis response app can help bring safety plans to  life

When you install CrisisGo’s emergency response app on your designated employees’ smart phones, ipads, or desktops, they can instantly have access to the same information that currently sits in that three- ring binder. With the touch of a finger, administrators can transmit either an audible alert or text notification to specific individuals or everyone in the district. With maps stored right on their mobile devices, all staff, including substitute teachers, can know how to exit buildings safely. They can use other maps to see where fire extinguishers and defibrillators are located. Teachers can have their student rosters on their phones and can take roll after a crisis for reunification purposes. When an incident occurs, everyone can instantly access checklists of what to do in that specific emergency. For those faced with communicating with the public or media, loaded communication scripts can be accessed for each type of incident for helpful reference. CrisisGo is designed specifically for the K-12 industry, and through our partnership with IASA we have an in-depth understanding of your environment and the myriad of challenges you face as a school administrator. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you transform your emergency response plan and put it into the hands of those who need that information most, please contact us at 618-997-2114 or email us at sales@crisisgo.com .

By Rebecca Renshaw Director of Marketing for CrisisGo

By now, you probably have spent significant time working on your district’s emergency response plan. You and your first response team have met with your local police and fire departments and many of you have sat down with your area emergency management agencies to carefully craft a plan that, hopefully, when an emergency happens, will keep everyone at the district safe. Maybe you have even already had a few drills with your response team members based on your updated plan. If so, you should be commended for doing all you can to keep your teachers, staff, and students safe. Yet, after all of your hard work and effort, why would you want to put your emergency response plan into a three-ring binder and place it on a shelf somewhere? For information that critical, you can’t afford to tuck it away somewhere to do nothing but gather dust. Research shows that 75 percent of workers carry their phones to work and have them within three feet of them at all times – and that number is growing. So, why not turn those phones and other mobile devices into a personal security platform that provides crisis alerts, as well as the tools to respond appropriately in those first critical moments of a potentially dangerous situation?

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