Worthington Schools using new technology for quicker emergency response

WORTHINGTON, Ohio ( WCMH ) – An alert system credited with saving lives in the recent deadly shooting at a Georgia high school is also being used by a central Ohio school district.

The Apalachee High School community is trying to heal after four people were killed and nine were hurt in the shooting Wednesday.

“You’re a human being, your heart breaks,” said Jeff Maddox, the assistant superintendent of Worthington Schools. “It’s every educator’s worst nightmare, its every parent’s worst nightmare, it’s stories you hope to hear less of, unfortunately we’re hearing it feels like more of those stories.”

As he talked with NBC4, he wore a lanyard around his neck. Attached to it was a driver’s license-sized device with a button in the middle. It’s made by Centegix. The company innovates “safety solutions to empower and protect people,” according to its about page.

“The badge allows us internal conversations and external conversations to minimize response time,” Maddox said.

Worthington Schools started piloting the technology at some of its schools just a few weeks ago at the beginning of the academic year. Maddox said every staff member in those schools has one of the badges. Based on how many times they are pressed, the school’s internal team can be notified of something like a health situation, or school staff and the 911 center can be immediately alerted for threats like a shooting.

“We have phones, we have cell phones, we have walkie talkies, but this is just another added layer,” Maddox said.

Apalachee High School has Centegix. Safety officials said it was used and prevented an even bigger tragedy. Maddox said it can empower teachers.

“We want to minimize response time and this technology allows us to minimize response time because it has the people that are seeing something be able to have a voice in that something,” he said.

The decision to pilot Centegix in Worthington was made last spring. Maddox said the plan is to meet in January to determine if the district will get the technology for all of its schools.

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