CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As with so many schools, especially in lieu of the Uvalde shooting, safety is the top priority.
The Robstown Independent School District is taking safety measures to make sure students are safe during times of uncertainty. One such solution being the introduction of a new alert app called Raptor.
The app allows Robstown ISD to use it as a visitor and emergency management system that responds to live situations while also preventing offenders from passing freely through the entrance of campuses.
According to Rachel Medrano, District Instructional Technology Specialist for Robstown ISD, the app will help faculty and staff be one step ahead if a situation ever arose.
"We can actually respond to something if it happens live on a campus and also prevent offenders from going onto or past our front doors," Medrano said.
The app has options such as secure, lockdown, evacuate, shelter, and hold so teachers can quickly assess the situation and relay that message.
"We can share that information with everyone that's involved," Medrano said.
With the safety of students literally in the hands of teachers, Medrano feels that the application can help bridge the uncertainty that can be present in high pressure situations such as active shootings.
"The power of Raptor is the fact it's the real time data we can instantly see at a district level, even a campus level." Medrano said. "Who's accounted for, who's missing, who's even injured."
The app even comes with a roll call list of students, that way if an emergency occurs, teachers can still make sure their students are accounted for.
"Safety is our first priority," said Jose Moreno, Superintendent for Robstown ISD. "And we take that very seriously in everything that we do because we care about our kids. We care about our families, and we care about our community."
On top of making sure students are accounted for, the app can also be used to screen visitors when they approach the campus.
"Anytime a visitor comes to our campuses, they have to bring an ID or driver's license, and we scan for any type of background," said Moreno.
Taking it one step further, students also have use of QR codes across all campuses in the district to make the reporting process easier and swifter.
"It's an actually online reporting system, but it's anonymous. So students have the ease of being able to in privacy be able to report anything incident that they would like," Moreno said.
District leaders said the best response comes with staff being fully equipped to handle high risk situations. Local first responders can help, and will be trained on how to use the app.
"When it comes to first responders and the Raptor app, we had the pleasure of bringing them on board in February and demonstrating the power of this app," Medrano said.
In the end Moreno said that preparation is key to help mitigate violence and make sure tragedies like the one in Uvalde never happen again.
"In this day and age it's most important to do is that everyone knows what to do. And any type of incident at any time of the day," Moreno said.
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