The Whitley County School District will soon be utilizing a new app that aims to create a safer environment in schools.
CrisisGo is a company that specializes in K-12 school safety via advanced alerting software and tools. According to their website, they offer “a comprehensive platform that allows school staff to quickly and easily communicate with one another and with first responders during an emergency” through the use of features such as real-time alerting, incident management, and parent notification
Last Thursday, the Whitley County Board of Education approved an agreement with CrisisGo during their regular monthly meeting to implement the app throughout the school district.
Superintendent John Siler said that being able to implement the app would greatly improve communication capabilities between teachers and administrators in an instance where time is a vital resource.
“At the current time, if there were to be a crisis at a school, a teacher or principal may have to get to a telephone to do a school-wide announcement or to call the office. With this, they can just use their phone,” said Siler. “This would allow us to quickly communicate across the school district, we can also set that up with 911 dispatch, law enforcement and things like that.”
Additionally, Siler noted that it will be a valuable tool for keeping staff out of situations that could be addressed by a school resource officer.
“I’ll give an example: You’re at a school and a visitor doesn’t realize where the front door is and parks on the side parking lot and tries to enter a side door. Obviously, with school safety now we do not let people in anywhere except for the front door where they have to check in, sign in and everything else,” said Siler. “So, what the app would allow a teacher to do, instead of confronting that person, they could get their phone out, send out a message and it would go to the principal and whoever else they wanted to share it with throughout the building saying, ‘There’s someone at the side door trying to gain access. Can we get a school resource officer at this entrance?’”
The app is expected to begin being used as soon as possible.
In other board of education business:
– A 2023-2024 school audit was approved by the board. The audit, performed by White and Associates, showed the district to be in good shape and no problems were found.
– A new board treasurer was selected during last week’s meeting. The board approved to appoint Amy Brown to that position, who had previously worked in the school district’s finance department.
Brown was also selected as the school district’s new chief finance officer during a special-called meeting of the Whitley County Finance Corporation, which was held during the board meeting. Brown will take over both positions from Felicia Logan, who is retiring.
– Some changes will be made to the district’ 2025-2026 school calendar regarding teacher professional development days. Traditionally, those have been frontloaded on the calendar, though following a polling of teachers, they are going to be more spread-out next school year.
Two of the days usually built into the front of the schedule is being moved to the Monday before Election Day in 2025 and the first day back from Christmas break in 2026.
