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November 3, 2009
By Lauren Matson
Press Release
MONTGOMERY- Alabama Homeland Security Director Jim Walker congratulates Fayette County Schools for their efforts in ensuring safety for their school children.
Working with the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, Fayette County Schools have completed a week-long training session learning how to upload school floor plans to Virtual Alabama. In doing this, Fayette County first responders can see a virtual picture of the schools.
“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 Fayette County Schools now connected to the Virtual Alabama School Safety System, real-time information is available to them. That’s important in a crisis.
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Virtual Alabama is a 3-D, interactive program. Law enforcement and emergency personnel across the state use the program in loading 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. In this district, Fayette Middle School was the designated school. However, representatives from surrounding schools attend the session so they have the tools and training to load imagery for their respective 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. By the end of the district’s training session, floor plans of all the schools are visible in the Virtual Alabama School Safety System.
Fayette County School Superintendent Reba Anderson said, “I think our students will be better protected should we experience a natural or man-made disaster. Thinking back to September 2001 when I was the principal of an elementary school, I might have been more confident and helped the teachers and students feel more secure if we had access to this resource”
According to Auburn Montgomery’s Associate Vice Chancellor of University Outreach Matthew Duke, the Virtual Alabama School Safety Initiative is building stronger relationships between educators and the first responder communities.
“Because the relationships are being built now, rather than in the midst of a crisis, our school, law enforcement and fire protection officials will be better able to plan and respond to incidents,” Duke said. “Our children will be safer for it.
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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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