Reed Bauer was finishing lunch at a junior high school in the Atlanta area last year, and an emergency alert began to sound from the hall. Reed, who was in sixth grade at the time, had never heard of the school’s “Code Red” alert.
This was part of a new $ 5 million crisis management service purchased by the Cobb County School District in Marietta, Georgia. District officials advertised a system called AlertPoint as follows:State-of-the-art technologyIt may be useful Save the lives of students For school shooting.
But that day, AlertPoint got into a fuss and sent False alarm I went to a school in one of the country’s largest districts and caused a blockade and horrifying students.
“Everyone was really scared,” said Reed, now 13 years old. Fearing his life, he turned off all the lights in his classroom and instructed his classmates to crouch along the invisible wall of the window. “One child actually tried to call 911,” he said.
The school has been struggling to stop and handle mass shootings since 1999, when two semi-automatic weapons-armed shooters killed 12 students and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. A mission for tens of thousands of school leaders in the United States.
Security concerns are fueling the multi-billion dollar school security product industry. Some manufacturers sell gun detection scanners and wireless panic buttons for school districts. Others offer high-resolution cameras and software that can identify student faces, track locations, and monitor online activity. This brings to the classroom the types of monitoring tools that are widely used by law enforcement agencies.
In 2021, US schools and universities spent an estimated $ 3.1 billion on security products and services, compared to $ 2.7 million in 2017, according to market research firm Omdia.safety Industry group Have Hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Federal and state funding for school safety measures. Gun control passed by Congress last week includes an additional $ 300 million to enhance school security.
In an interview, a half-dozen school district security and technology director said some products were essential. One pointed out a security camera system that helped his district observe and measure the severity of school fires. Others have mentioned crisis alerting techniques that school staff may use to call for help in an emergency.
District officials provided more diverse views on sophisticated sound systems such as high-tech threat detectors, which promise to enhance security through the use of artificial intelligence.
But there is A little difficult evidence A 2016 report on school safety technology by researchers at Johns Hopkins University suggests that safety technology prevented or mitigated catastrophic school events such as shootings.
Read more about artificial intelligence
Brian Casey, Technology Director of the Stevens Point Area Public School District in Wisconsin, said: “We really need to take a step back and look at it and say: What are the benefits and how much will it cost?”
Citizens’ freedom experts warn that the proliferation of surveillance techniques such as gun detectors could reduce the safety of some students. They also say that tools do nothing to deal with what many believe to be the root cause of school shootings: widespread availability of assault weapons and national mentality. Health crisis.
“Most of this technology acts as a distraction,” said Chris Harris, policy director for the Austin Justice Union, a racial justice group in Texas.
Wesley Watts, director of the West Baton Rouge Parish School in Louisiana, which has about 4,200 students, said it was more important to create a supportive school culture than security technology for safety. Still, he said, certain tools could give schools an “additional layer of security.”
His district recently started using video analytics from a startup called ZeroEyes that scans school camera feeds to look for guns. Founded by a U.S. military veteran, the company states that it used so-called machine learning to train the system to recognize about 300 different types of assault rifles and other firearms.
ZeroEyes also employs former military and law enforcement personnel to check images of guns detected by the system before notifying the school. Company says Its human review process ensures that school officials do not receive false gun warnings.
ZeroEyes service can cost $ 5,000 per month in one high school with 200 cameras. Watts, whose district uses services with 250 school cameras, said the cost was worth it.
A few months ago, the director said Zero Eyes found a young man with a rifle near a high school athletics stadium. Shortly thereafter, the company’s reviewers identified the object as an airsoft gun, a plastic replica of a toy. This allowed district officials to intervene directly with students without having to call law enforcement agencies, Watts said.
“It’s worth it for me, even if I don’t have a real weapon,” Watts said.
Zero Eyes technology has limited use. Mike Lahiff, CEO of ZeroEyes, aims to detect visible guns when they are being swung around.
In other districts, new safety tools are causing problems.
In 2019, Charlotte Mechlenberg School, one of the largest school districts in the United States with more than 140,000 students, introduced an emergency alert system. It’s from the Atlanta company Centegix, and the wearable panic badge provides all school staff with an “immediate way to notify appropriate staff and authorities” about emergencies and other incidents. I promised.
The district has spent over $ 1.1 million on the system. But then he sued Centegix, Charlotte Observer Detailed flaws in the badge service.
According to legal documents filed in the case, among other issues, the badge “repeatedly failed” to notify personnel, sent false and serious warning messages, and “significantly significant safety information. Caused a “delay”. The district settled with Centegix for $ 475,000.
Mary Ford, Chief Marketing Officer of Centegix, said Charlotte’s school is piloting an alert system and the company is addressing issues that arise. The company delivered over 100,000 alerts, maintained 99% of those customers, with the exception of Charlotte-Mecklenberg, and worked with nearly 200 school districts.
This spring, after an increase in the number of guns seized from students, Charlotte Mecklenburg’s school introduced another security system. A walkthrough weapon scanner that costs $ 5 million for 52 scanners in 21 high schools.
The scanner, provided by Massachusetts startup Evolv Technology, used machine learning to train the system to recognize magnetic fields around guns and other hidden weapons. .. “No need to stop” Company website “You don’t have to empty your pockets or take out your bag,” he says.
However, common student items routinely complement the Evolv scanner, such as laptops, umbrellas, three-ring binders, spiral bound notebooks, and metal water bottles.
How-to video about scanners Post to youtube In April, Matthew Garcia, the dean of students at Butler High School in Charlotte-Mecklenberg, recommended that students take them out of their bags and carry them. Next, Garcia showed students how to avoid system triggers by passing through the Evolv scanner in the school lobby with his arm extended overhead with his laptop.
Brian Schultz, Chief Operating Officer of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, said the scanner is more accurate than traditional metal detectors and much faster to use in large high schools. He said that the need for students to remove items from their bags is a “short-term inconvenience” to improve school safety.
“There is never a perfect solution,” Schultz said, taking a “layered” approach to safety, including an increase in cameras, security guards, and school-based mental health personnel. I added.
Mike Ellenbogen, chief innovation officer at Evolv, said the company is working with the school district to find ways to make the scanning system work more smoothly.
Cobb County was the first school district in Georgia to use AlertPoint, an emergency notification system developed by a local start-up. District officials said AlertPoint’s wearable panic badges help school employees request a blockade or call for help in an emergency.
Then, in February 2021, the AlertPoint system sent a false alarm throughout the district and was blocked at all schools in Cobb County. District officials initially stated that AlertPoint had malfunctioned. A few weeks later, they announced that the hacker had deliberately issued a false warning.
At a board of education meeting this month, district director Chris Ragsdale said the system was working up to cyberattacks.
But Reed’s mother, Local watchdog group While monitoring school spending, she said she blamed district leaders for introducing unproven technology.
The Cobb County School District did not answer specific questions about security measures. In a statement, district spokeswoman Nankir said, “To keep students and staff safe, we keep details about school operations private.” (The school district is Grand jury investigation According to the Marietta Daily Journal, for certain past purchases, including millions of dollars spent on UV lights aimed at disinfecting classrooms during a pandemic. )
This month, a school in Cobb County announced that it would introduce a new crisis alert technology. From Centegix, A company with a defective alert badge at a school in Charlotte Mecklenburg. Another large school district, Palm Beach, Florida, has also announced a deal with the company.
