With two current themes impacting school safety, one the COVID-19 pandemic and a call in some school districts to remove police officers from schools, Motorola Solutions (MSI) is working to improve school safety.

MSI has teamed with SaferWatch to implement a security system that provides schools with a “mobile panic button” that can be used via a smartphone in an emergency.

The SaferWatch panic button can be used by school administrators and staff to alert officials of an emergency at a school. When the “button” is pushed, “public safety emergency operation centers are immediately notified of the situation.”

According to MSI the SaferWatch system then, “Alerts [with] detailed information including user profile, location coordinates, and supporting videos or pictures are aggregated in Motorola Solutions’ CommandCentral Aware software.”

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The Motorola Solutions software then provides 9-1-1 operators with a holistic picture of events that can then be shared with first responders in route to the emergency.

The SaferWatch system, in combination with the Motorola Solutions software, is being deployed in Florida schools at this time. The system is designed to comply with recent Florida law, requiring “every school in the State of Florida to implement a mobile panic alert system connected to a public safety answering point (PSAP) and first responders.”

Assuming the system is a success in Florida, it could be expanded to schools across the U.S., with the goal of lowering the cost of school security systems. 

The Motorola/SaferWatch partnership was on display at the 2020 Super Bowl Live events in Miami, as SaferWatch was selected as the Official Safety App of the 2020 Miami Super Bowl LIV Host Committee.

The system provided by Motorola Solutions and SaferWatch was available to over 10,000 workers and volunteers at the event, demonstrating the robustness of the system. 

Speaking about the system, Scott Adler, Motorola Solutions VPof Southeast Region Sales, said, “School personnel can quickly notify public safety of an emergency using SaferWatch’s mobile panic button. Motorola Solutions’ public safety CommandCentral Aware software aggregates the information related to the event, activates video cameras at a school, and equips first responders with the intelligence they need to coordinate the incident response.” 

Steven Adams’s personal position in Motorola Solutions: none.