GAINESVILLE, Ga. — Hall County is adding another layer of school security, after the County School Board approved a $150,000 pilot project for a “silent alarm.”
Although school officials remain equally silent on which school will first get the new alarms, Dr. Aaron Turpin, Assistant School Superintendent of Hall County Schools says it’s not unlike the silent alarm systems found in banks and courtrooms.
“We are taking the notion of an alarm button under a bank tellers window and putting it in various locations around the school so that when the button is depressed the law enforcement community is immediately notified,” Turpin said.
Turpin added that the alarm will add one more element.
"All of our teachers at our pilot school will have a desktop icon that they can press and that will immediately alert the school personnel,” he added.
School personnel can then quickly evaluate the threat and activate the silent alarm directly with law enforcement.
The silent alarms supplement an already established school security system.
It starts when someone comes into the front entrance.
Once allowed inside the only place you can go at Johnson High School is to the front office.
Then, the only way to get in through the inside locked doors of Johnson High school is with this photo ID badge.
Something that Johnson High School Principal Stan Lewis says is now mandatory for all 1,600 students, as well as faculty and staff,
“We try to make sure we know that everybody on campus belongs here and so every student and every staff member is required to wear an ID,” Lewis said.
All told, Hall County has 33 schools. At each of its 6 high schools and middle schools, an armed Hall County Deputy Sheriff patrols both inside and outside.
As the officer makes the rounds. strategically placed cameras scan hallways, entrances and exits, with control monitors in key offices to view and record all activity.
Working together with locked doors, photo ID badges, armed security and closed-circuit cameras, Hall County school officials think the silent alarms will add a most important final touch.
