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Schools In Central Florida Roll Out Panic Button App

Lindsey Kilbride

Seminole County is rolling out an app that acts as a panic button for school employees in an emergency.

With a tap of the app, an alert can be sent simultaneously to 911 and school employees. Maps of schools can be loaded into the app that sync with GPS allowing first responders to pinpoint where the call came from.

Seminole County School District Spokesman Michael Lawrence says it’s an extra layer of protection. “A teacher is in a classroom, or even out in a courtyard at high school during lunch or something,” said Lawrence, “and if a kid’s having a cardiac arrest event or something’s going on, they can activate an emergency from their phone.”

The Rave Panic Button is used in school districts across the country, but Seminole County is the first in Florida to install it.

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Catherine Welch is news director at Rhode Island Public Radio. Before her move to Rhode Island in 2010, Catherine was news director at WHQR in Wilmington, NC. She was also news director at KBIA in Columbia, MO where she was a faculty member at the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism. Catherine has won several regional Edward R. Murrow awards and awards from the Public Radio News Directors Inc., New England AP, North Carolina Press Association, Missouri Press Association, and Missouri Broadcasters Association.