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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to asbo international's school business insider. I'm your host, john brucato.
- [00:17]
Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business.
- [00:39]
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Today we're tackling a critical and ever evolving topic for K12 school business and operations professionals, school safety. I'm joined today by John Vetter of Sentijix, a company at the forefront of wearable safety tech and and incident response platforms for schools. We'll explore how school districts are viewing safety today, how safety budgets are being prioritized or challenged, and how wearable technology, including panic button badges, are shifting the environment on campus from reactive to empowered. We'll discuss what leaders need to know, what questions they should ask, and how to translate technology investments into practical gains for staff, students, and community confidence. John, welcome to School Business Insider. My friend. So good to see you.
- [01:23]
B
Thank you, John, so much for having me today.
- [01:25]
A
Yeah, love to have you on. And I'm excited to kind of talk about school safety in general and just kind of where technology and that ARC is and what schools can do to kind of really best prepare themselves for the worst. So why don't we start with, you know, how are districts today framing safety? I mean, is it simply just lockdowns and access control, or is the concept a little bit broader than that now that the landscape has been changing over the past 10, 15 years?
- [01:50]
B
In some ways, it's just that, I mean, a lot of times we have conversations with district leaders because again, other competitors and vendors in the space lean towards the lockdown, which we'll get into the protocol piece of it. But I think for the most part, it's much broader than that. It's the incidences in school, it's visitor management. It's all those components that come together that allow districts to. To provide. We always say a layered approach, walkie talkies, SROs, and other pieces. But yes, for the most part, it's a much broader concept now than just the lockdown. And we know it. Right. It's been unfortunate over the last 15, 20 years, but certainly it is much broader than just a lockdown. Yes.
- [02:34]
A
Yeah. And I think too, just like staff training is something that's vitally important because you're really only as strong as your weakest link. So if somebody is leaving a door Open or isn't checking, you know, egress points. I mean, that is something too, that I think we've invested a lot more of our time in is just everybody's responsible in some capacity. Are you. Are you kind of seeing that across your districts as well?
- [02:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, we have a lot of districts that at some point, when I have, let's say on site visits, they've already deployed our solution. Let's just say we're having conversations and I'm like, hey, other than the badge, like, how do you train a sub or a new person, whatever, or just in general the entire population of the school. And. And I have one school in central Pennsylvania that has this great pamphlet they created over the last two years which allows the new hires and of course, even the existing employees to kind of double check when to hit buttons and when to use it, how to use it, and what's gonna react to them once they do hit that button. So, yeah, the ongoing piece is very, very important. And again, they really try to systemically create this, really this rule of, hey, we're gonna follow protocols, we're gonna drill, we're gonna make sure people in the right places in certain situations to help out, whether it's a student, a staff member, or anybody from the community that's coming onto our sites and our buildings.
- [03:49]
A
I mean, that's really encouraging, that example about your Pennsylvania school, because just to have a pamphlet or a one pager for a new staff member has to be just so reassuring for them. Because if you think about back when we first started in our careers, and we've been doing this for a while now, but back when we first started, you know, school safety was a little bit different, a little bit more relaxed. And now there are so many drills, so many protocols, so many safety solutions out there to keep staff and students as safe as possible. It can be overwhelming. Even if you're just a teacher or a custodian coming into a district, especially if you're coming from the private sector, the whole mindset around safety is a little similar, but I would argue that is very different and much more rigid in school. So that example of just being able to provide a one pager to somebody new has got to be so reassuring and allows them to kind of adapt to this environment we find ourselves in.
- [04:39]
B
And again, right. Not product driven, but we try to make it as simple. I think districts try to make it as simple as possible for their staff to understand what to do, where to go, how to do it. And again, this one gentleman who's a business official in pa. We just had a recent workshop with him and his district and other folks, and it's this big orange book. You cannot miss it when you're in the. And it's orange paper. So it's a wonderful resource for them as existing teachers and of course, for the new hire coming into. It's wonderful.
- [05:12]
A
So you're obviously in connection with a lot of school districts and CFOs and business officials. Let's talk about how they're prioritizing safety in the budget. I mean, the budget is always a push and pull. There's finite resources, a lot of competing interests. But I think we can all agree that safety is probably number one, or at least should be. So when you think about that and when you, you reflect on the conversations you've had, where's its place relative to other capital operations and instructional support, where does safety really land with all those competing budgetary interests?
- [05:47]
B
That's, that's a loaded question. Right? So. So it. No, all, no, in all honesty, it is the, it's the top of the list. Right. They want their, their students and their staff to be safe. The parents, the community want those buildings to be. Not prisons, obviously, but they want it to be open, open spaces that are safe to everyone there. But when it gets down to, hey, how much does something cost? Where does this find itself? A lot of times I'll ask the questions pretty early. I'll go through it because we have a very simplified pricing model. And I'll say, listen, where do you see this? Is this more of a grant operation, a combination of grant and general funds, or is it going to general fund? And depending upon the numbers, it could be a really very small portion of it. But I do find that business officials and superintendents alike typically want to keep safety off of their general. I don't know what the general fund, they don't want to go that route. They'd rather do something a little bit different, which I understand. But then I'll talk to some districts in New York and in pa. My two, my two larger states in the region, it's split down the middle. Some go combination of grant or they'll go general or they'll go, they'll go just grant operation only. So it's tough because ultimately you want them to see the value in adding a layer that they, whatever they have now, they're adding another layer. You want them to understand that it's not to your point before, when we first started, about the lockdown and all those pieces which are important. But ultimately it's the day to day modalities of emergencies, fights, behavioral elopement that you want them to grab onto and be like, wow, that's a difference maker too. So it's, you know, it's a conversation, John, we have this all the time and say, you know, where does, you know, whatever the numbers are, where does that fit and how would that come to pass? And they're very honest. They're like, this is going to be grant driven or. And sometimes we get lucky. If they're doing a capital improvement, we kind of can, you know, they'll kind of tie that together as a new building or something or investment and they'll, and they'll put in the safety part of it too. So it's, it's a combination of things. Not to give you, not a, a direct answer. It's just really, it's a, it's a huge combination of how they go about paying for it.
- [07:53]
A
And when you're having those conversations in terms of prioritizing safety in the budget. You had mentioned grants, I'm guessing a lot of the time because funds are so constrained on, on a regular basis, districts are scrambling to try and find extra money that they otherwise didn't have to make sure that they have the best safety protocols and solutions in place. Are you finding that more districts are maybe headed towards the grant end of things in terms of implementing new safety measures? Because keeping students safe is obviously the most important, but it comes at a cost. So are you seeing a trend more towards that proprietary funding?
- [08:29]
B
Yeah, because a lot of times when we have conversations with a cabinet, a team, and let's say it starts from the tip of the spear, which is the superintendent, to business official, director of tech safety, their safety team, whatever. A lot of times we want to bring resources to the district. So it's not just saying. And I'm using just round numbers. If I said to the district, it's going to cost you 10,000 bucks a year to have our solution, right. They might be thinking that's cheap, whatever, but they could use grants. I'll always say, listen, we have a grant resource advisor on that's an employee of Syntgix. They can help your grant team or grant writer go through the machinations of that process and even provide research to what kinds of grants you're eligible for and the cutoff dates and different pieces. So that's been an invaluable conversation because you know this as a business official, right? The more you know, the better off you are. Right? So the, the ability for us to educate, no pun intended. Right. The school leadership about how we can go about paying for this, whether it's general fund combination or true grant for them. They're like, well, this is. If we can get the grant and pay for it over the next three to five years, this is, it's a home run for them. So it's. We just try to be, for me anyway, personally, I try to be very upfront within the presentation of how we can go about putting the funding together for, for the district and hopefully deploy it for them.
- [09:46]
A
Sure. And what other kind of barriers are you seeing? I mean, obviously budget is the biggest one, but you know, there's competing needs. Timing of grants can always be challenging. Staffing, technology, integration. Are you. What are some of the other barriers that you've really cropped up in your conversation with these cabinet leadership teams?
- [10:03]
B
Yeah, well, I'll address the grant right off the top. Like we have. This is COPS grant. That's it's out there. It's an acronym for something. Right. It's the college grant. It's a federal piece and it's not always given, it's not always earned. So a districts will, will apply. We had a huge, I guess application process over the last couple of months. The government was shut down. When the government opened back up again, all those grants started to pop into the window of accepted or rejected. So a lot of times if a grant is rejected, it goes away. Right. The competing, the competing pieces is really, at the end of the day, it's them saying, do we want to do this? Where do we see this happening in. Let's just say the prioritization of what we're doing for the next school year. And you know this school years are July 1 to June 30. So we try to have these conversations now into the early portion, Jan, February of the new year to get on a budget cycle to see if it works. And at the end of the day you're. And you're pulling in. We're pulling in directors of tech, the safety. So those barriers are more. So it's a, it's systemic and just instead of someone saying superintendent wants it, let's make it happen. It's a much bigger conversation. So we have to get buy in from all the departments and I think.
- [11:14]
A
Too the grant process. I've been through the COPS grant process before and it can be really discouraging, especially if you're not awarded it, which we were not unfortunately. But the amount of time and effort you have to Put in just to apply and to make sure that you're trying to fill it out as thoroughly as possible, only to find out months later that, sorry, we appreciate your submission, but it hasn't been awarded. It's like, all right, then I just spent hours trying to put this together, hoping that I'd have additional funding to implement some new safety measures. Unfortunately not. And now you're scrambling to try and find an alternate solution and to that.
- [11:48]
B
Point, just to land the plane there, Right. Sometimes these districts, I had one in upstate New York outside of Syracuse, rather large district, they want Centengix so bad, but ultimately they didn't get it, so they have to move in a different direction. So our grant advisor helped them look at some other state grants and some other pieces that we could look at in the 26, 27 school year. But, you know, sometimes it's an emotional piece too, right? You. You apply for something figuring, I'm going to get this, put this into my school. It doesn't happen. You just have to shift and pivot to make that work and do the best you can. I mean, you know, if, you know, if the dollars aren't there, the dollars aren't there, you have to make it work within the parameters of that budget and, or the grant that's given. That's all.
- [12:28]
A
And when you're speaking with your districts, what is kind of the sentiment that you're. You're finding with everyone? I mean, are districts seeing safety more as just a compliance checklist cost, or is it now kind of evolving into a broader strategic investment in terms of implementing into the culture, recruitment, community trust? Because, you know, every state has their mandates. I mean, like New York, for example, we know there's so many lockdowns and fire drills we have to do. But what are you seeing? Are districts just kind of checking the box, or is now safety becoming more just woven into the fabric of the districts themselves?
- [13:04]
B
It can be in some cases. I can sense it as a sales professional over the last 30 years and the last nine in the K12 and Ed Tech space, sometimes you could see them checking the box and depending on what they choose to do, what direction they go in. But I would say 80% of the time, it's a bigger conversation. And we have, you know, a lot of information on the retention and teachers wanting to feel safe within their district. And we want parents to feel great that when they send their kids to school, their, you know, their kids to school, they have this ability to feel like, well, they can perform. They could feel great about Themselves and get to where they want to be academically, in groups, you know, all the different, you know, clubs they want to join. You want them to feel really empowered in that, in that space. But you know, like I said, it's, you know, it just becomes a conversation. A lot of times it gets down to, hey, how do we position this and what can we do that's best fit for us within a budget time budget constraint? And you just do the best you can to make that happen. But yes, 80% of it is a much bigger than just checking the box for these districts. That's correct. Yeah.
- [14:04]
A
Yeah. So I want to transition to kind of talking about wearable technology and just really empowering those on, on campuses in the district. You know, when you and I first spoke, John, you had talk to me about Syntgix solution in terms of a wearable technology which was new to me. I mean, I'm used to, you know, everybody knows the, the fire panels and the, the pullable fire alarms and you know, lockdown drills and all of that. But now kind of transitioning and empowering the individual as with wearable technology was really fascinating. So can you walk me through how wearable tech is making a difference on campuses and in school districts?
- [14:42]
B
Well, in some cases, right. In New York, the cell phone is becoming this barrier to entry. Right. Governor Hochul was like, listen, we don't want cell phones anymore within the classrooms and my wife is a teacher here on Long island. So they have to put them in certain spots, that type of thing. So cell phones don't become that place where people can go and contact somebody. So the wearable allows a staff member, teacher, sub superintendent, maintenance worker, whoever it might be to navigate that campus. So for them, the ability for them to feel great in the common area, the parking lot, the playground, the ball fields, the maintenance sheds, the bus barns, for them to feel like, wow, I can call for help at any given time with this little credit card sized badge around my neck for them. And I have these conversations all the time, whether it's Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York superintendents, leaders, whoever. They just feel like it's this shield of safety for them to give them the ability to call for help at any given time and anywhere on the campus is a big deal for them and the teachers. When we see different media go to these different districts in these different communities, if they're interviewing teachers, they'll be the first ones to say, I could never now imagine not having this as my, I grabbed my keys, my phone, my bag, my lunch bag and My syntijics wearable coming to school. So for them, you know, it makes them feel really empowered when they're on my campus.
- [16:08]
A
And so how does the technology function? Is it kind of like almost like a life alert where they hit the card and does it ring the office? Does it go right to emergency responders? What is kind of the thought in the background?
- [16:20]
B
Yeah, I'll give you from 10,000ft not to go into too much detail. It's pretty simplified. Right. So everything that our technology is built upon is wireless. Right. So the lift for the tech and the facilities folks on a campus is very, very light. So the badge is multi year battery, don't need to charge it. There's no app for the teacher to download which is fantastic.
- [16:41]
A
Right.
- [16:41]
B
We also, we put these gateways on the building. So those gateways are Lora Wan technology. And the badges are low energy Bluetooth. So they connect itself to these beacons we put outside and these strobes we put inside. So anytime that they're navigating the building, it's not tracking them. But if they see something that's not in their, in the right way of safety, they hit that badge, they click it three times. I need help is essentially what we tell people to do. It alerts a responder in that building, doesn't alert police or the office. They can if they want, but there'll be a list of responders that, that are assigned to a certain, let's say building. Those responders then will get it on their security app and they'll tell them there's something going on. And the map comes up the exact location of let's say John Bricado is in his office and someone wasn't feeling well, you click the badge and someone would, they would see John Mercado in Office 102 on the first floor. They can literally make their way right to that spot and then they can communicate with other responders. Let's say there's six responders in a building. They can essentially say I'm on site, all is good. We're going to call for EMS and whatever it might be to, to get help for John or whoever is looking to that assistance. So it's a very unique technology where there's no really need for WI fi and no need for cellular. So it's a, it's a pretty cool, you know, capsule private network.
- [18:01]
A
So when this guy shows up in my office called John Vetter and I'm like, I didn't expect him to show. I can hit three Times and I'll have somebody come to my, my aid. Yeah.
- [18:09]
B
If you wanna.
- [18:10]
A
Yeah.
- [18:10]
B
If John Vedder shows up and he shouldn't be there, click a few times and someone will come and help you out and remove me from that. From that and exile me from that building. That is correct. That is correct, yes.
- [18:20]
A
Sounds great. Sounds great. So that I'm interested more in the, in the technology as well. So.
- [18:27]
With these solutions, you're kind of installing your own infrastructure to support it. So to your point, an existing technology team doesn't need to start spinning themselves out of control saying we don't have the bandwidth for this, we don't have the manpower to install this. You're kind of layering it on top of an existing tech system. Is that right?
- [18:45]
B
It's 100% correct. So their lift is only. And I go over. There's a segment in my presentation I go over. It's called the connected campus. Because a lot of times, as you know, Briarcliffe, right. You guys have already spent money on other things that are happening. Intercom system, cameras, door access. There could be a whole bunch of other things that you've done. So our ability with backend APIs in the system, we can kind of connect to a lot of different pieces, flat panels and different pieces to make the campus to say, hey, listen, you have all those pieces, keep them, just add this layer to it. And it will also be the area where it'll launch off to maybe create an alert here or maybe alert over there. And we get into the local police if there's, God forbid, an intruder on campus. Right. The ability for another series of clicks that are different than the three click that alerts your local police department that provides them with the same mapping. So when they get to the location, they're not fumbling through, it's upstairs somewhere. They have the actual location in their squad cars and of course on their phones if they select it too. So the Peace app and real time crime centers is a really big piece of, of the technology integration as well.
- [19:56]
A
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- [20:36]
And what is kind of your experience in rate with false positives? Are you seeing that happen often or is it, you know, because you have to physically grab the card around your lanyard, theoretically, and click it three times? Are the false positives kind of far and few between?
- [20:50]
B
They are far and few between. You do get them. We train our folks to say. We train the staff to say, listen, that button is, if I could say the word, intentional. It's not a button that you could just like your mouse pad on your laptop to just kind of like delicate this. You have to intentionally press it with your thumb with a little bit of energy, if that makes sense. So for it to be a false positive where you were leaning up against, let's say you had a book bag in front of you and you were, you'd have to ultimately push and pull that book bag three times in perfect order for it to happen. So the false positives are very, very far and few between. And if it does happen, of course it can happen. Right. But we hope it's a staff alert, not the lockdown, because if the lockdown alert, then protocols get taken into consideration. Of course, we've already alerted the local police department, so we want to be very sure that we train the staff pretty well on the badge, if that makes sense.
- [21:42]
A
Got it, Got it. You mentioned this a little bit before, but can you tell me a little bit more how this wearable technology is changing the feeling of teachers and staff and administrators on campuses that have kind of implemented it? I mean, is there just a greater broader feeling of safety and empowerment and agency in terms of making the entire school safe?
- [22:04]
B
Yeah, I was actually telling the summer I was, I did a lunch with East Hampton School District here in Long island, and they deployed it several years before I even got to syntjix. And I just, I brought lunch in and wanted to meet a superintendent and their safety team and whatnot. So, you know, around the table, just having some conversation, really broad based conversation. I asked one of the principals who's part of the safety team, she was wonderful. I said, how do you feel when you come to the building during the day? Like, you first get there at 7, 7:30 in the morning, you open the doors, you get in there, your staff's rolling in, students start to roll in. And she said what I said before, and she said, it's like a shield, right? She goes, for me, the Ability for us to feel empowered at any given time to notify my responders in my building if there's a low level alert and God forbid there's a, there's a, there's an intruder or some sort of active shooter on campus, I could click that badge a number of times and then get the East Hampton police, the village police, and of course local Suffolk county police there too. So for them it just becomes this. I want to say that it's like again, they mentioned the word shield in this lunch. And I was like, well, that's interesting, but it is really empowering. When you walk around, you don't have your phone on you, you're not near a wall static panic button, you're not near a phone and something was to happen to have that on you, to know that help can come to you and literally within seconds is very, very powerful.
- [23:28]
A
So if a school business official is listening to this conversation and is been considering wearable technology, whether it be syntax or otherwise, what should school business officials ask vendors? What hidden costs or integration challenges should they anticipate and how should they measure really the ROI of such an investment?
- [23:46]
B
Well, they should. First off, anytime you and you know, whether you're looking at curriculum or you're looking at HR items like my days at Frontline or if you're looking at safety, Right. If you're going to look at something, look at the Apple stock to apples. So you know, we always tell folks we're big on the strobes. So let me talk protocols for about 25 seconds. Right. Our ability within a building to literally, you know, cover the entirety of buildings with hundreds of strobes that are wireless. Right. So they're not just lights that light up if there's an active, active shooter or an intruder on campus. Right. It also acts as a locating beacon. So if I'm in room 202, I'm in the auditorium, in the gymnasium, in a hallway, it doesn't matter. We put hundreds in, let's say a high school, right. Or even a middle school. So for them they have to say if I'm looking at this from vendor to vendor through an RFP process or I'm just making contact with vendors, are all the vendors putting strobes in every single classroom? Right. Ultimately, I would say just based upon my intel, that answer is probably no. If they have to ultimately look at the small print, always make sure that they're putting in there, you know, are the strobes being included not only from a device itself, but is the installation being Included. Right. For us, everything's wireless. So when we send our teams to these districts in all these different states, whether it's one building or 25 buildings, we literally can install a huge high school within four or five hours. It's pretty impressive, to be honest with you. So the biggest ticket item as far as the timetable is the gateway. We tell folks, if you have a good IT and facilities team, you could put in a camera. You can install cameras. It's the same Cat 6 Poe cable that you can install and you put on that as the only wired device. So for them, if they're looking at this from a perspective of roi, too, from everything down to insurance premiums and people being able to, again, call for help, you know, that's an HR retention piece. You know, that just becomes a real big item for you to compete with competing districts around you as well.
- [25:43]
A
Yeah, it's great big on the strobes. It sounds like my college day is going out, you know.
- [25:48]
B
Well, yeah, when it goes off, believe.
- [25:50]
A
Me, it's lit up, my friend.
- [25:51]
B
Yes.
- [25:52]
A
The strobes.
- [25:52]
B
Yeah. Except for the music. There's no music.
- [25:54]
A
Yeah, no music. Music.
- [25:56]
B
The bad dancing involved. No. Bad.
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, maybe that's phase two. You get some music bumping.
- [26:02]
So let's talk about really what these solutions bring in terms of just culture and implementation. So, you know, buying the technology is one thing, but, you know, it's really about embedding the safety mindset in the culture of the school district. So what steps do districts need to take to really move from we purchased this tool, we purchased this technology to now we live with a plan, and now we have a culture of safety.
- [26:27]
B
So your question ultimately is when they go from not having the badge or this technology to, let's just say, then having it and adopting it, what does that look. Look like going forward for them?
- [26:37]
A
Yeah. So, I mean, they have the tech, and it's like, that's great. It's, you know, shiny and new. But how does that tech help districts kind of just like, parlay into just a culture of safety?
- [26:47]
B
Well, ultimately. Right. The culture of safety for them is it's constant training of their staff.
- [26:52]
A
Right.
- [26:53]
B
We have a whole library of things we can share with them. But a lot of times, like I said to you, the couple of districts I did some workshops in pa, they have a whole thing that's built around that culture of safety. And the other piece is too, when you talk to districts, we talked about protocols before anybody. Anytime that a district brings this to their district in this technology protocols Become a huge piece. Whether it's Alice, I love you guys, run, hide, fight, right? And we know this, and I often said this from my days in sports, right. You can't replicate that, gain speed. Right. When something happens, you got to be prepared for it. That's why practice kind of, you know, the old practice makes perfect. So that culture of knowing, hey, if some. If I see lights, I see screen takeover, that we're in the lockdown, I hear the PA system. I don't see and hear anything. That's in my purview. But I know now that I'm. I'm in a lockdown, and I keep my kids and myself and whoever else in my area safe, lock the doors. That culture of allowing them to really feel like they've now gotten to a point of their drilling with it, they're practicing with it, and now it's. It's become systemic within the district. It's a huge piece for them, and it's always great to hear that they're using it for drills and they're learning off of it, too, because we know that not everyone gets it at the first. The first jump. Right. So we want them to make that very systemic in their culture.
- [28:10]
A
Yeah. And, you know, introducing new technology, especially across all staff, can be a pretty daunting task. So in your experience, what implementation mistakes or oversights tend to really derail that implementation of safety tech deployments in schools?
- [28:25]
B
Well, you know this from anything you deploy at a K 12 district, right. If you don't bring in the folks that need to touch it and work with it, it becomes this. What are we doing with Frontline? What are we doing with PowerSchool? What are we doing with Syntgics all of a sudden? And then, okay, it's already. We've already baked it, signed it, it's coming now all of a sudden, if I'm that person, I'm playing catch up, right. So I often have this conversation. Let's just say you and I are having a conversation about bringing technology to your district.
- [28:54]
A
Right.
- [28:55]
B
I'll often say at the end, even though you're in a cabinet position, I'd say, listen, I would suggest at some point we get down the path, we make this a broader conversation. Bringing your director of tech, even bring in the local police department, have some conversations, bring in your superintendent and the safety team itself, and let's go through that. And I'll bring a little bit of. We have a couple of folks I would bring on my side. So you just want to have everybody really Be, you know, invested in the conversation as they go down this path. So it's big when you, all of a sudden you have, I always say this, you know, who's your contact of your QB1 on the project? They're like, if they had to think about it, I'm like, oh, let's make sure this person is involved, right? But typically, I would say, John, in my 18 months here, typically the person they make QB1 for the implementation is, typically has been in the calls with us, right, in the meetings to make that work. So for us, we just want to make sure that it's, you know, it's kind of broadcasted throughout to make sure there's no issues with everything. That's all.
- [29:51]
A
And I think too, as school business officials, we always want to measure the success of any major investment, whether it be with wearable technology, capital improvements, new equipment purchases, being able to justify spending taxpayer dollars is hugely important to us. So with that, how can school business officials really measure the effectiveness and make data meaningful for boards and stakeholders with investments like wearable technology or otherwise?
- [30:19]
B
That's great. So within the system, right, the ability for district leaders to track any kind of event from a drill to practice to what we call a staff alert, which is that low level alert from a emergency, angry parent, a fist fight, a behavior situation, the ability for them to literally have a DNA dashboard, we call it from my days at Frontline, right, The DNA dashboard allows them to take a look and say, wow, last week we had nine alerts. Six of them came from the cafeteria, two came from a building, one was outside. What kind of alerts were they? Those kinds of things that allow the board, who's maybe approved this, let's say, came out of general funds and they looked at it, they go, wow, this is amazing. What would we have done if we didn't have this for this cardiac arrest on the campus, right? Because we have to know this. We're trying to really. The overarching theme for the conversation is time. We want to save as many seconds as possible. So if I'm a teacher in a hallway and I don't feel, well, let's say by myself, right? And I'm like, wow, I feel I see spots, you know. You know, as you get old, we've done enough research, you see spots, you feel hot, you feel, you have heart racing, three clicks, right? I may go down to one knee. I'm not passed out. But I know that, that the vibration of that badge has allowed me to get there. We're, that's The ROI is that maybe I don't know what my life is worth or any life is worth. There's no. You can't put a dollar amount on it, but the ability for them to realize that it's using or being used for those instances. Nine events over a month, could be 10 events, and in a quarter, it could be maybe 14 or 15 events. I'll throw a quick number at you. Last year alone, Crisis Alert, which is the badge system within mapping, and all those different pieces was used across the country over 250,000 times. Wow. So when you start to extrapolate data like that across our over 1,000 school districts that are clients of ours, from one building districts to Clark county in Nevada, which is several hundred, you realize that the data is proving itself true, that, well, there's things happening on a campus that it's not just. Again, going back to the very first part we talked about, the active shooter. It's an expensive insurance policy to buy something just for the active shooter.
- [32:30]
A
Right, Right.
- [32:31]
B
I'm not saying it can't happen because no one thought Columbine or Parkland or Uvalde would have happened either. Right. But we know that, you know, the rule, the rule of law is that could it even happen? And ultimately, if it doesn't have, I spent this much money, but now across the course of a day, I got all these different things that could happen. That's where the boards and the cabinet can talk and say, you know, we've had issues with fights, behavior, special ed classes, the one on one classes, whatever it might be, that's the true ROI for these districts. Does that all. Does that kind of resonate with you with the numbers that we have?
- [33:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's. So it's much more than just a threat from an outside entity. It's any health and safety issue that could pop up. So, you know, we've had medical emergencies where someone hasn't been in reach of a wall phone, and maybe they have bad cell signals. So it could have gone a lot worse than it did. But it sounds like something like this that's your ROI is it's not just some kind of active shooter scenario. It's really any health and safety issue.
- [33:31]
B
I'll tell you, last year when we had a. A thing happened in Apalachi High School in Georgia. It was a school shooting. They had our tech, they have our technology. They had the shooter apprehended within like 125 seconds, which is a little over two minutes, which is insane. Right. But ultimately that created A groundswell in everywhere in the country. I had many, many meetings and I had this conversation, you know, 50 times a week in September, October, November of last year. And the best part about that was the ability for us to educate school leaders about our technology and what it was. But I often got to the point, and I was kind of still kind of new, but I got to the point where I'm like, if you're buying this just for the active shooter, that's one thing. And you could do that just an ex. It could be an expensive insurance policy that you have to look at the grand scheme of things that the mapping allows you to know that if John Brucato is a special ed teacher, he has a kid flipping desks over in his classroom and he can't control that scenario. He needs more adults and, and more eyeballs to help him click the badge three times. And I show up and someone else shows up and all of a sudden now we can hopefully quell the situation, remove the student to a safer spot and get the other kids back to a safe spot. And now learning that's the critical piece for us. So that's where we kind of have these conversations now. More so is like, hey, active shooter is great. We connect, we have lights, we have takeover stuff. But in reality it's what's happening Monday through Friday. And to your point, I think medical emergencies account for like 65 to 70% of the three clicks, which is. Could be stroke, could be the peanut allergy, it could be an allergy, it could be a seat, it could be anything happening to a student, staff or community member on that campus, which is big.
- [35:13]
A
Yeah, makes sense. So what role does leadership really play in sustaining these safety efforts over time? I mean, there could be a lot of excitement into the implementation and everybody rallies around it, but then you kind of just fall back into the day to day your routine. So in annual budgeting, training, continuous improvement, where does leadership really kind of play their role in making sure that everybody's up to date and being current with this technology and whatever else comes down the line?
- [35:43]
B
Well, I think it's a superintendent. Right. Or even a building leader, but mostly superintendent who's the tip of the spear for the district. Right. If they're looking at whether they have gun detection at the front door or metal detection, front door, they have bulletproof grass or they have, they have, of course, the locking doors, the cameras and they have syntics. Right. That, that responsibility of that superintendent. It's critical that they have a safety plan in place. Right. And you know this as much as anybody from, from your district. As long as the leadership is driving those narratives for anything you're talking about in this case, it's safety, then everyone else will be like, well, if John takes, takes this seriously and the superintendent does, then I have to too. Right. So it's, it becomes, I say it as I watched my giants get beat up by the Pats last night. Right. The cultural differences between Mike Vrabel and someone else, it's night and day, right. And no damnation of Mike Kafka. He's, it's, he's just not a Mike Vrabel. At the end of the day. It's just like if it's cultural from the top down, it is truly systemic. And then the excitement of that deployment and then using of it and the data analytics and saving someone's life or maybe if there's a situation that we did have to deploy the police to come to campus, it pays for itself probably over 10 times, if that makes sense. So it's really becomes a cultural event from the top all the way down.
- [37:03]
A
Yeah. So really setting the tone at the top and modeling that importance and behavior. Right.
- [37:07]
B
100%. And you know what, you see this, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, superintendents come and go. They get a bigger district, bigger opportunity, they shift, they do different things, they retire, it doesn't matter. Right. We want that to be systemic. So when the business official or the deputy superintendent is there still and they're super left, they're like, well, these are the protocols we have in place. We're paying for strategics, we're paying for, you know, the ver with the cameras. We're paying all these different access control pieces. And this is how it's been working for us. And here's the data to prove it is. It doesn't, it shouldn't even be a conversation after that. Right. We have to. That's why making it systemic from the top down is, you know, is critical to the success of our solution deployed.
- [37:48]
A
Yeah, well said. So when you look out into the future of next generation safety tech, what trends are you watching for? I mean, are there other kind of wearables, analytics, AI and threat detection? What in, in your circles, what is kind of coming down the line?
- [38:02]
B
Yeah, I think we see it now. Right. We see threat detection, threat assessments are big. Right. We can, we, we kind of loosely partner with some of those folks because we, you know, sometimes social media can be a huge piece to knowing if something could be happening in a really. I'll Call it a negative way towards that district. We see it now with different types of technology. I saw something that was at, I was at a conference, and it's these drones that, that could be deployed if there's an active shooter on campus.
- [38:28]
A
Right.
- [38:28]
B
It could be deployed to literally, I want to say spray, like, I want to say the word smoke. You know, it looks like that on the video. But I'm like, that's interesting. Right? There's no threat to that. There's no person in a drone. Right. They're operating that and there's several, you know, across the campus. So we're seeing all kinds of pieces. The one item that I will say, you know, when you provide mapping and location, it's a huge piece for everyone. Right. So the ability for us to work with the, with those types of organizations or work with, you know, anybody else coming across within our purview, it makes, it makes it really, really very, again, the glue that keeps districts and kids safe.
- [39:07]
A
Sure. So as we wind down here, if you could leave school business officials with one piece of advice as they prepare for budget and plan for, for next couple of years around strategic safety, what would that be?
- [39:20]
B
I would say if we're going to talk business officials, that's talking investment, I will tell you this is not, when you look at wearable and maybe even strategic specifically in this case, it is not a king's ransom. It's not. It's something that is affordable. It's something we can help you with resources, with grants just take you down the path of education and modeling of what other districts have been doing best practices and see if it's something that ultimately could fit and should fit in really every district. But ultimately, if that's something you're looking to, it doesn't, it's not gonna, not gonna break the bank based upon what I know in my last, you know, 18 months here at Sentegix. So certainly something worthwhile to take a look at.
- [39:59]
A
Awesome. Well, John, thank you so much for joining me today on School Business Insider. It's been an insightful conversation and thank you for all that you're doing for school districts to keep them safe.
- [40:07]
B
Thank you, John. I appreciate having me today, buddy. I really do.
- [40:12]
A
Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.
- [40:23]
B
Sam.