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October 13, 2009
By Lauren Matson
Press Release
MONTGOMERY- Alabama Homeland Security Director Jim Walker congratulates Crenshaw County Schools for their efforts in ensuring safety for their school children.
The Crenshaw School System has successfully loaded floor plans of all schools into Virtual Alabama. In doing this, Crenshaw County first responders can now see a virtual picture of the schools. For Luverne High School specifically, all 20 security cameras are also linked into Virtual Alabama.
“In response to one of Governor Bob Riley’s top priorities, we are taking school safety to the next level,” Director Walker said. “It’s important that our educators and first responders have the best tools to protect our school children. With Crenshaw School System now connected to Virtual Alabama, real-time information is available to them. That’s important in a crisis.”
Virtual Alabama is a 3-D, interactive program. Law enforcement and emergency personnel across the state use the program in layering data that’s important to a specific situation. With the Virtual Alabama School Safety Initiative, a team from Auburn University Montgomery’s Center for Government chooses one school in a district to map first. However, representatives from surrounding schools attend the session so they have the tools and training to load imagery for their respective school in the future. In this case though, the entire district was mapped into Virtual Alabama. The district includes Brantley High School, Highland Home School and Luverne High School. With local law enforcement and emergency managers from the county also attending the training sessions, the group learns the Virtual Alabama program and decides what information would be significant to know in a crisis.
Crenshaw County School Superintendent Kathi Wallace said, “The benefits of bringing educators and first responders to the table to discuss school safety are invaluable. Having the knowledge of where everything and everyone is located is priceless in an emergency situation. The educators and the first responders will be able to work together more efficiently and effectively now.”
The school system is looking to buy more security cameras to increase coverage of their campuses. Superintendent Wallace adds that as more cameras are bought, they will be linked to Virtual Alabama.
The Virtual Alabama School Safety Initiative is a partnership with the Alabama Homeland Security Department, Alabama Department of Education, Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center and Auburn University Montgomery Center for Government.
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