The lack of a communication alert system at our schools
The tragedy at Virginia Tech early this week continues to highlight a glaring problem at many of our school campuses and surrounding neighborhoods: we lack an effective directory service that provides real-time alerts and notifications to individuals within a given community. Its been reported that there was a major 2 hour gap between the first shooting and an email that was finally sent by the administrators to students and members of the Virginia Tech community. A simple message to the community immediately after such an event could possibly have saved some lives. The power of information here would have save lives, I believe.
The structure of a directory needs to incorporate the appropriate communication devices that people have, not just an email address. It also must be easy to use and real-time. I worry that if we continue to ignore the lack of such a system, we will see more of these incidences, not just at our schools, but within our own communities. If this can have in such a serene place like Virginia Tech, it can happen anywhere.
As this topic has been my focus for the past seven years, for those interested, our company, Context Connect, actually provides a free mass alert and notification service to any community that needs instant connectivity, whether its a school or volunteer fire squad. Please email me if you are interested – sunny@contextconnect.com
craigmx
April 19, 2007 @ 4:58 am
This is not the first time that such an absurd bloodbath happened, may it be tightened security or upgraded information systems…I hope they do something more concrete this time.I wonder if it will cause people to really deal with the issues though?
sal
April 19, 2007 @ 8:30 am
Schools must absolutely do something about this issue. It just shocks me that information isn’t revealed when it should be – also the lack of a directory isn’t surprising – schools should mandate a contact number as well.
sunnyahn
April 19, 2007 @ 8:39 am
agree that the seriousness of this must be dealt with. Schools must start making this a priority – also it must start thinking of itself as part of the greater community, particularly with the local community – that includes the residents of the town, its law enforcement, its local businesses – there needs to be a coordinated communication system that can alert folks of potential issues. hate to see that events like these are causing us to wake up to the problem.