APS emergency alert system to launch this fall

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The APS Board of Education recently signed off on a $7.3 million crisis alert system.

Larry Hausner with Centegix, the company providing the school alert system, showed KOB 4 that there will be a button on school employees’ badges.

The button is connected via Bluetooth and can immediately alert first responders on school grounds if there’s a need for an intervention.

“Everywhere, football stadiums, parking lots, athletic fields, it’s not just indoors,” Hausner said. “So if I’m in the parking lot and somebody comes up to me, maybe a parent is a little angry with me. I click my badge three times, the responders on the campus are going to come help me.”

The tool would also be used for more serious threats.

“When I hit that badge an eighth time, there’s strobes throughout the entire campus,” Hausner said. “They flash red, that’s communicating it’s a lockdown. Simultaneously, a pre-recorded PA message is projected throughout the whole campus. This is a lockdown, here are the protocols.”

In that instance, APS police would be notified.

Hausner said 600,000 people are already wearing their badges nationwide.

“We had one the other day where we had a teacher in the classroom, had a student have a seizure. She had her badge, she clicks it, help is on the way immediately,” Hausner said.

The Bluetooth networks are getting set up in APS schools now. Officials say the alert system will be up and running sometime this fall for the entire district.