Mass Notification for K-12 Schools
Protecting your K-12 community from potential threats – active shooters, severe weather, health outbreaks, and more – is one of your top priorities. It’s our mission to support you in this effort.
Mass notification is a critical component of an overall school safety strategy, and it doesn’t have to be overly complicated or costly. By leveraging existing infrastructure and technologies already in schools, such as PA systems, desktop computers, and VoIP phones, the Alertus System makes mass notification accessible to every school district.
The Alertus System helps solve many communication challenges, including:
Staff and faculty without a means for quick and effective internal communication
Widespread areas
Internet outages and cellular network constraints
Loud environments such as cafeterias, gymnasiums, and playgrounds
Buildings not staffed 24/7
Notifying teachers and staff without panicking students
Multilayered Mass Notification for Schools
Depending on one form of emergency communication, such as a PA system or text messages, can be incredibly unreliable during an emergency. NFPA 72 Chapter 24 recommends using at least two of the four layers of communication – indoor, outdoor, personal, and public alerting. Alertus offers solutions for all four layers to enhance and extend your mass notification reach – all from a single point of activation.
The Alertus System comes with a wide range of innovative alerting capabilities to ensure you can notify everyone everywhere when it matters the most.
“The Alertus System works great, activations go out quickly, and information is distributed to various stakeholders and responders simultaneously. I also like that the Alertus System is adaptable and modular, so modes of communication can easily be added.”
Empower Faculty and Staff with
Rapid Incident Reporting
K-12 schools have unique security requirements to consider when choosing panic button solutions, including facility layout, students and visitors, and existing infrastructure. Alertus offers a full suite of panic buttons to empower staff with rapid incident reporting capability and alert faculty, students, and district administration of threats before, during, and after an emergency.
ALERTUS’ PANIC BUTTONS OFFER:
Location Awareness. Share precise location and user information to facilitate swift response.
Dynamic Capacity. Configure your devices with custom event triggers to enhance their capabilities. For instance, send distinct messages regarding a reported incident to different stakeholders or automatically notify law enforcement.
Integration Capability. Integrate with existing Alertus products, including Alertus Desktop™ and IP Text-to-Speech Interface for PA systems, as well as many third-party products.
WiFi Panic Button
The Alertus WiFi Panic Button allows users to quickly, subtly, and remotely request help when and where they need it most.
Affordable &
Easy to Install
Leverage your existing internet connection and network infrastructure
There is no need to install additional connection endpoints, as would be required to support Bluetooth or RF devices.
Buttons ship ready-to-use and preconfigured to your organization
Discreet & Intuitive
Ideal one-touch duress solution for K-12 schools.
Teachers and staff can carry the device on a lanyard or in their pockets to instantly request help or activate emergency alerts from their classrooms or anywhere on school grounds.
Highly Scalable
Deploy dozens to thousands of preconfigured buttons quickly and easily.
Reliable
Active monitoring of device availability at customer-tailored intervals.
The Alertus Notification System immediately notifies stakeholders if devices require charging or lose connectivity, enabling proactive resolution and mitigating impacts to the response.
Available School Safety Grants
While recent state funding primarily applies to physical security improvements, millions of dollars in federal funding are also available to support student well-being initiatives. Several federal grant programs on various school safety topics, including student mental health and targeted violence prevention, have recently opened application periods.
The grant programs offer to cover a range of school security/safety issues, including:
STOP (Students Teachers Officers Preventing) School Violence Program – Deadline: June 12, 2024
Project School Emergency Response to Violence (SERV) – Ongoing
Alertus Safe In Seconds Initiative – Private Funding
React Instantly with One Touch Activation
Every second counts when it comes to keeping people safe in an emergency; that’s why we built the Alertus System. The Alertus System allows designated dispatchers to activate an emergency alert immediately, regardless of location — reducing risk, as dispatchers aren’t tied to vulnerable areas such as front desks or needing to activate disparate systems from multiple locations.
Hardware
Alertus Panic Buttons can integrate with the entire Alertus suite, creating a single point of activation for emergency alerting of your most imminent threats.
Software
Through the Alertus Desktop™ Activator, administrators can instantly send a desktop alert for incidents ranging from minor IT outages to critical emergencies such as a “lockdown” or “shelter in place.”
Mobile
With the Alertus Activator App, all emergency notification endpoints can be activated on the go with just a click of a button — even when the dispatcher is away from the PA system.
“In an emergency situation, there is no more picking up the phone and calling schools individually. Now, Daviess County Public Schools administrators can hit one button and alert all 18 schools in the system at once.”
Outdoor Audible Power
Alertus offers innovative outdoor warning solutions featuring text-to-speech (TTS) technology to ensure your ability to notify everyone across broad areas and provide real-time information.
High Power Speaker Array (HPSA)
Designed with features that meet the needs of K-12 grounds, the Alertus HPSA combines usability and reliability with industry-leading technology in an affordable, easy-to-implement solution.
MOBILE HIGH POWER SPEAKER ARRAY (MHPSA)
Provides siren tones and clear voice messaging. Pulled with a standard trailer hitch and set up in less than 15 minutes, the MHPSA is ideal for a temporary PA system for sporting events and graduations.
OUTDOOR HORNS
Coupled with Alertus text-to-speech technology, these horns are multi-directional, fully zoneable, and seamlessly deliver clear, spoken messages to inform your community of an emergency and how to respond.
Indoor IP Audible Power
Alertus’ IP audio technology transforms a school’s indoor areas into a unified emergency communication system. Industry-leading speakers and integration solutions can complement or extend the reach of your existing PA system, delivering on-the-fly human speech synthesis, pre-recorded messages, and unique tones to alert teachers, staff, and students.
VOIP INTEGRATION
Enable schools to transform existing desk phones into valuable mass notification devices, expanding their alerting endpoints to every desk and room with a VoIP phone.
IP TEXT-TO-SPEECH INTERFACE
Utilizes breakthrough text-to-speech technology embedded in a compact PCB module to fit inside most public address systems. It seamlessly communicates with your existing PA system for widespread enhanced coverage, allowing you to activate PA systems in all or targeted areas with custom alert messages or unrehearsed live voice.
IP SPEAKER
Deliver highly intelligible indoor audio that can integrate with existing systems.
Customers We Serve:
“For us, it’s all about better communication, faster communication, more accurate information to our schools.”
Additional Resources
[BLOG]: HOW TO MEET ALYSSA’S LAW REQUIREMENTS IN K-12 SCHOOLS
Alyssa’s Law requires public schools to have silent panic alert systems linked directly to first responders and law enforcement. Alertus equips hundreds of K-12 schools and districts across North America with unified, multilayered mass notification solutions.
WATCH: Wifi Panic Button
Equip your staff and personnel with a personal panic button to ensure they get help when and where they need it. The discreet and intuitive design makes it easy for users to press for help, and the Wi-Fi-enabled button sends location information to responders.
[Learn More]: Alertus Safe in Seconds Initiative
The Safe in Seconds Initiative ensures all schools — regardless of size or budget — can instantly reach their people when they need it most. We provide Alertus Desktop™ Notification at no cost to schools and nonprofit organizations. Alertus Desktop immediately grabs the attention of computer users with full-screen alerts for any emergency. So far, this initiative has benefited over 700 institutions across the world.