Streamlined Safety Information and Communication

Challenges Faced

Linn-Mar Community School District wanted to improve their access to emergency information and communication to ensure that all their staff would know what to do if an emergency occurred.

The school district had relied on physical binders for their emergency plans, but few staff members knew what was in them or where they were, and it took too much time to update and share their revised plans when changes needed to be made.

Proposed Solution

Safety leaders at Linn-Mar Community School District wanted to not only provide their staff with immediate access to their emergency plans, but they also wanted to be able to quickly update and push out any changes to their emergency plans. After an evacuation event that went successful but left the district scrambling with what to do next after everyone had safely exited the building, the district realized that they also needed a better way to communicate during an incident along with more streamlined methods for accessing, editing, and adapting their emergency plans.

Outcomes

Leisa Breitfelder, Executive Director of Student Services for Linn-Mar Community School District informed that the district values the ability to use CrisisGo for safety drills and to take the feedback they get from drills and incidents and quickly adapt their safety procedures.

Breitfelder stated, "You are always making edits to your [safety] plan because you want to make them better, and the only way you can do that is through practicing or unfortunately living an incident." She said that CrisisGo allows them to quickly make changes online and instantly update the emergency plans for all their staff.

Linn-Mar Community School District was actually able to utilize CrisisGo just days after the platform was implemented. Breitfelder informed that the police put the district on lockdown due to a vague active shooter threat that was posted on social media. She said that their school that had fully trained on CrisisGo was able to lockdown in a matter of seconds whereas other schools that weren't trained with the platform took 15-20 minutes. According to Breitfelder, from that experience, the district learned the importance of having each school learn and train with the platform.