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Teachers at the Aspen School District were trained and tested on how to use the Raptor Alert app earlier this semester, which is designed to provide fast and secure crisis communications.
The district enacted a lockdown drill on Tuesday, Feb. 21, to test the system, and just one day later on Feb. 23, the entire campus went into a real lockdown.
Superintendent of the Aspen School District, Dave Baugh, hosted a meeting on Thursday, Dec. 23 with parents and teachers to debrief the events of the previous morning.
He mentioned that the app was helpful to school officials and allowed them to shut all the schools down faster than usual.
“And until we had Raptor, we had to get on the radios,” Baugh said. “We had to call people. It would have taken us 20 minutes, a half an hour. And so if it was a really active situation, it would have been really hard for us to secure every building.”
The district is still in the early stages of implementing the app, which gives teachers and staff the ability to share critical information about injuries and locations during an emergency that can dispatch emergency personnel to where they are needed most.
Kim Zimmer is a teacher at Aspen High School and said the district is still working to get everyone on the app.
“Anyone in the district that has Raptor can put the school into lockdown, into an evacuation or shelter in place or a hold,” said Zimmer. “So every staff member has this. We're working on subs right now. We're working on all the maintenance teams.”
Aspen High Assistant Principal Becky Oliver says Raptor Alert gives staff the ability to account for students, teachers, and staff.
And in the future, it will be used to facilitate reunification, and it’s specifically designed for schools.
In an email to Aspen Public Radio, Oliver said the app is specifically designed for schools and that the safety of students and staff is a top priority for the district.
