Staff and faculty from the South Williamsport Area School District got a hands-on look at the district’s recently installed safety technology during a training session Tuesday afternoon.

Ben Roberts, Professional Services Engineer, for Raptor Technologies, joined the assembled personnel remotely, and ran through a full system demo of the Raptor Learning Accountability App and the Raptor Alert app, which can be used in a large number of emergency situations, ranging from active shooters to severe weather, to keep track of student, personnel and guests’ whereabouts and wellbeing.

The app offers a number of features to help keep users abreast of evolving situations, including the ability to initiate critical situation alerts that can be sent out to specific individuals for what Roberts called “micro incidents,” as well as group messaging for larger safety issues, auto-refreshing emergency alerts and the ability to review documents such as emergency procedure practices and evacuation plans.

Roberts ran an exercise in which an evacuation for the school may be ordered, such as a gas leak or fire.

“When we send out that alert, it’s going to function pretty similar to an Amber Alert, so it’s going to override “do not disturb,” and silence mode, and it’s going to make sure that if you have these settings enabled, that you receive that critical alert,” he explained, adding that additional messages may be sent via text and email.

Once an emergency is initiated, the person sending it out will have the ability to dial 911 straight from the app and give updates as the situation progresses.

Given permission, the app will also be able to share the location of anyone utilizing it, which Roberts said is particularly important.

“If you had to evacuate to a lesser known spot, maybe your evacuation route was blocked or closed up and you had to evacuate to a different location outside of the school, it might be helpful to drop your location to show where you’re at and show your colleagues, staff members and administrators where you’re located,” he said.

Roberts then turned his attention to Accountability, which gives all those using the app the ability to mark staff, faculty and students as accounted for, missing and other categories, including their current location and if they have been injured.

The feature can be particularly helpful for student teachers, teacher’s aids and for situations in which students may be out of the classroom, such as in the nurse’s or guidance counselor’s office.

The system also catalogs guests at the facility, so that emergency responders are aware of their presence if their particular location is unknown.

The status of all persons rostered can be updated at any time throughout the situation, Roberts said.

“The reason for adding that status, whether they’re accounted for or missing, is to allow your district administrators and your building administrators to help assist with either trying to locate them or trying to assist them,” he stressed.

Following Roberts’ presentation, personnel were given a live demonstration of the newly installed AI gun detection ZeroEyes.

Comprising more than 200 cameras across the district’s three campuses, ZeroEyes detects shapes consistent with an unholstered firearm within several seconds and sends the images for follow-up review by trained current and former military members.

Once detected and identified as a gun, the movements of the individual with the firearm are tracked, along with photos from the camera picking them up, and can be viewed by administrators from the software’s dashboard.

“We don’t want to ever have this happen here, but this is also to hopefully help response time for the police and other first responders,” Dwight Woodley. director of Innovative Learning and Information Systems, said.

For the demonstration, a school employee walked the halls with an unloaded pellet pistol in his hand, which was immediately picked up by the system, sounding an alarm and alerting administrators.

State Rep. Jamie Flick, R-South Williamsport, who was instrumental in helping to secure funding for the technology, was in attendance for the training.

“We were fortunate enough to get a grant to be able to have this technology installed for us and paid through by a PCCD grant,” Superintendent Dr. Eric Briggs said.

“We were also very fortunate for our local Moose,” he said.

“With the system, we’re only allowed to put 10 names to get these alerts. With an additional cost of $750 a year, the Moose has graciously agreed to fund for our local police department to be able to be added to that list for the first two years,” Briggs said.

“So not only will the 10 administrators identified to the district receive a first initial response, but our local police department will be able to have one as well,” he said.

“We feel we’ve layered the school district to be in a very safe place,” Briggs said.

“The staff from South Williamsport were trained in two very important safety measures and programs the district utilizes to add yet another layer of safety for all students and staff,” Briggs said in a statement emailed to the Sun-Gazette.

“The new Raptor technology is a teacher accountability system that allows staff to track students attendance and location should an emergency occur. The software also allows for communication between administration should an emergency occur as reported by another staff, enhancing their communication abilities,” he continued.

“The district also saw a demonstration of our new AI gun detection technology ZeroEyes. This technology is a gun detection technology with human “checkpoints” that detects guns on our school property 24/7/365,” the email said.

“With this technology, administration and first responders are immediately notified should an event occur, and therefore limits the time of event for the intruder,” Briggs concluded.