Clay County District Schools teachers will have a new school-safety tool when classes start in the fall.
The school board voted Thursday night to purchase an emergency communication system that will provide a direct link between school personnel, first responders and local law enforcement.
Superintendent Addison Davis told WJCT News the system includes a panic-button app that everyone will have on their cell phones.
"If I fall in my classroom, I can press the button for first responders and those first responders know immediately through a GeoSense in the school of where I’m at because they already have the schematic and then go directly to that classroom versus going to the main office and getting a map and determining where they have to go,” said Davis.
The system will initially cost around $80,000. “And that’s software, equipment, set-up, because that money is just not money for an application. That money is so we can upload every schematic and blueprint of every one of our schools and buildings in our district,” said Davis.
Yearly monitoring will run the district about $40,000.
Contact reporter Cyd Hoskinson at choskinson@wjct.org, 904-358-6351 and on Twitter at @cydwjctnews.