SDesigo Mass Notification System helps Kent School reach all students across
its 1,200-acre campus.
et on an expansive, scenic, countryside campus, Kent School offers an idyllic setting for K-12 education – and a challenge. It takes the right solution to immediately reach all students and faculty during an emergency, when they might be anywhere across the 1,200-acre site that includes six dormitories, 10 instructional buildings, and a wide range of athletic and recreational facilities.
“Everybody knows the first three to five minutes are the most important in an emergency,” explains Joe Wolinski, Kent’s Facilities Director. “When you’re on a campus spread out like this, you have to have a way of communicating.”
Kent School turned to Siemens for innovative technologies that have increased its safety and emergency preparedness and made it a perfect place to learn and grow. The Siemens solution combined a new mass notification backbone with an intelligent fire system, allowing the school to quickly reach students in an emergency and provide clear direction based on event-specific plans.
“Siemens proved to be a true business partner in working with us to understand our concerns, to understand the issues we’re trying to address, to look at the day-to-day activity that happens on campus and the technology that would integrate well,” says Jeff Cataldo, Kent’s Chief Financial Officer.
Siemens provided insight and mapped a solution tailored to Kent’s specific needs that incorporates the company’s Desigo® Mass Notification System (MNS) and Desigo Fire Safety Intelligent Voice Communication fire detection panels.
Desigo MNS leverages the latest communication platforms to ensure emergency notifications reach the intended audience, wherever they are.
The system communicates across both networked systems, such as computers and speakers, and personal devices, such as cell phones and laptops. Its ability to provide extensive coverage is an important capability, especially for a campus as large as Kent’s.
In an emergency, Desigo MNS reacts across various Siemens and third-party devices, ensuring students across campus receive the intended message:
• Desktop alerts are sent to all computers linked to the school’s IP network
• Emails are sent to all current faculty, students, and parents
• Text messages are also sent to all faculty, students, and parents, as well as a resident state trooper
• Messages are communicated through IP-networked loudspeakers that Siemens installed throughout campus
• Desigo Intelligent Voice Communication fire panels broadcast messages throughout all facilities
A key feature of Desigo MNS is its “easy button” functionality. Kent can pre-set procedures and messages for different scenarios, such as weather or an intruder on campus. In an emergency, any number of school officials can engage Desigo MNS for a specific scenario, either from the command center or remotely. Desigo MNS also offers on-the-fly capabilities that allow officials to create and broadcast live emergency messages via their cell phones.
“Being able to program it to what we need is huge,” says Kent’s Safety Director, Brian Hunt, when describing the advantage of the system. “So is the portability; wherever I have my laptop, I know I have Desigo with me.”
With Desigo MNS, Kent is better prepared, able to reach students, faculty, and staff more quickly and effectively in an emergency, as proven in recent drills.
Just as important, the system gives confidence and peace of mind to school officials and parents. “The speed of our ability to alert people quickly and easily has made everybody relax a little bit,” says Kent’s Dean of Students, Cathe Mazza. “We’re not worrying when there’s a storm coming and kids are in 50 million different directions. We know that we can reach them all.”
Ingenuity for life creates perfect places.
We spend around 90 percent of our lives indoors. So buildings are far more than just four walls. At Siemens, we make those experiences better by making those places more comfortable, safe, secure and sustainable. It takes Ingenuity for life to create these perfect places –to give people a place to achieve their most ambitious goals, to give them a place where they can be successful and live the life they want.
Time to create your perfect place with building technology from Siemens.
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Layering Security to Protect Outdoor Campus Space
When thinking of protecting the indoor environment of a college or university campus, a few security products quickly come to mind – locks, access control and burglar alarm systems. But go outdoors and these tools have little or no value.
The vast majority of colleges and universities sincerely care about providing a safe and secure environment for students – both indoors and out. Administrators also realize parents consider security an important factor when selecting a campus for their college-bound children.
Virtually all students now carry a smartphone allowing campuses to employ campus-initiated apps providing immediate access to police. However, during an emergency, police need to know exactly where to respond to help a student in danger. Assuming a student’s cell phone is charged, accessible and still in their possession during an emergency event, the cell phone’s location accuracy is still dependent on weather, the number of nearby cell towers and topography.
To connect a distressed person to campus police quickly and reliably, Aiphone emergency stations can immediately pinpoint the person’s exact location while opening up a communication channel. Emergency audio and video intercoms help police quickly assess situations. Stations are typically topped with a bright blue light making them easy to spot from a distance at night. Once the station is activated, the light begins to flash, drawing additional attention to the site.
Aiphone emergency video stations can provide police with real-time video which can be captured on an external VMS system for future reference. The
units can also be integrated with existing campus surveillance cameras for a broader view. Aiphone emergency intercoms can be scaled up to 5,000+ units, which also can include indoor stations for stairwells, elevators, offices, hallways and classrooms. In addition, Aiphone video master stations can control and access stations across a campus, helping to centralize security. With Aiphone’s mobile app, roaming guards can communicate with calls while walking campus.
Aiphone emergency stations are compatible with stand-alone towers and wall boxes. They come with Braille signage and adjustable call button heights to comply with ADA standards. The stations are available in IP-based models that connect to the campus network and draw power over the Ethernet using CAT-5e/6 cable. Dispatch/phone lines are kept open by using the intercoms as a secondary communication path.
Aiphone’s emergency stations offer other advantages including:
• They are always there and always on
• When a call comes into campus police, dispatchers immediately know the station’s precise location
• Stations provide peace of mind to pedestrians and act as a deterrent to criminals
• Station-mounted speakers can broadcast emergency news
• Two call buttons, one for emergencies and another for non-critical calls such as requests for campus directions
• Control from one or more master stations to centralize security and dispatch
• Mobile app control for roaming security forces
• Stations connect over a network eliminating monthly phone line charges typically found with telephone-based emergency systems
Layers of security are really what outdoor campus security is all about. There is no one technology or device capable of handling all emergencies. It’s the synergy of campus police, escort services, lighting, cameras and emergency stations that make a campus more secure.
For more information on Aiphone Emergency Stations and Towers, click here…
6670 185th Ave NE
Redmond, WA 98052
800-692-0200
www.aiphone.com
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Turn roaming guards into patrolling response centers with mobile app
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