Prior to 2006, all 9-1-1 calls made by the School District of Palm Beach County (SDPBC) came from red analog Emergency Phones that were placed in the Front Office of each school location. In May 2000, the district experienced a shooting at one of our schools that killed a popular teacher. When the school called 9-1-1 the call was made from the Red Phone (Emergency Phone) in the Main Office. The shooting occurred in a classroom. The Emergency Response Dispatcher only knew that the call was coming from the School District of Palm Beach County.  They did not know what school, or where on the campus the call was coming from. 

In 2006, the school district began their journey into new technology with the IP Conversion Project and installed a PBX at every school location in the district to bring us into the VoIP era. As part of this IP Conversion Project, RedSky’s E911 Manager was introduced to manage E911 for the School District.         

As the IP Conversion Project began, we looked at how school campus security could be enhanced and after learning about RedSky and how the information provided by RedSky to Emergency Responders can provide life-saving time and information, our project was born.

The IP Conversion Project along with the installation of RedSky’s E911 Manager began in August 2006 and was completed in March of 2009. We have over 23,000 analog, digital and IP telephones in our district and E911 Manager is installed at 209 sites. E911 Manager automatically updates the AT&T ALI database daily with the location of each phone.

Today, our system handles 8-15 emergency calls per day; 75% are valid 9-1-1 calls and 99% are injury related.

The Emergency Response Center and SDPBC School Police Department are able to see:

• Name of School, Department of Site
• Street Address, City, Zip Code
• Floor number that the telephone is located on
• Building ID where the telephone is located
• Telephone number of the telephone making the 9-1-1 call
• Each Principal/Department Head at each school/support site location is notified via e-mail when a 9-1-1 call is made

These E911 reports are auto-generated daily:

• IP Phone report – identifies location of all IP phones
• 9-1-1 Call report – date, time and location of all 9-1-1 calls
• Missing Info report – identifies any phone that does not have a location
• Rejection report – identifies location records that were rejected by the AT&T ALI database

I hope you’ll continue to join us on our journey to provide safety information for Educational Facilities.

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Helen Hironimus, is a voice and data communications professional with 25 years' experience at the School District of Palm Beach County (FL). She has been integrally involved with the district's IP Conversion Project and is responsible for leading the implementation of the District's new E911 and emergency notification systems. Palm Beach County School District is one of the largest in the country, serving 170,000 students in 186 schools.

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