Chambana Sun

The Urbana School District recently discussed implementing a new crisis management app to ensure the health and safety of its students and staff.

At the Dec. 6 Urbana School District #116 Board of Education meeting, the board discussed plans to provide training and demonstrations on the Crisis Go application with the goal of fully rolling out the program by the end of January. Crisis Go includes a smartphone app that bypasses silent settings on phones in case of emergency and can also send SMS texts for other situations.

“This is for emergencies and crises,” chief information officer John Gutzmer said at the meeting. “This is getting people where they need to go as quickly as possible in the case of a critical event.”

The tool also enables schools to conduct practice drills, which Gutzmer explained is beneficial for multiple reasons.

“Right now, I think there's a manual process … to make sure that we have all of our compliance for drills and make sure that everything's checked off,” Gutzmer said. “This takes care of all of that. And additionally, when you go to implement the drills, you're using the system, practicing with the system that you would be using in a real emergency or crisis.”

Gutzmer showed the board what the normal display and emergency displays would look like on phones and desktops.

The app has a section for teacher assist which can be used for classroom-level emergencies where the teacher doesn’t need a full lockdown but just the attention or assistance of administration in their classroom. It also has a feature that allows students to anonymously report harassment or bullying issues.

While the crisis management program has an annual subscription fee, the district was able to negotiate a discount. The automatic 911 connection component of the app might take longer to implement due to governmental requirements.

On Dec. 6, the district dealt with a crisis event as a middle schooler unexpectedly passed away during the school day from a previously undiagnosed medical condition.