Bangor School Department Families and Community Members,
I hope that each of you has been able to enjoy our Maine summer. As your thoughts start to focus on the return to school, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with some important information about communication and school safety.
Website/App/Alert Updates
As we prepare for the 2023-24 school year, we are working diligently to revamp our website and communication methods. As we launch the new Apptegy communication system and load emergency contact details into the software, you will receive a message that states:
“Welcome to messaging for Bangor School Department by Apptegy. Five messages estimated a month. Message and data rates may Apply. Reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel.”
Once you receive this message, you are signed up for the new alerts and will not need to respond. Responding (HELP) will connect you with Apptegy to answer any questions that you may have. If you elect to cancel (STOP) this message, you will not receive emergency alerts, snow day cancellations, or other important emergency information directly from your school(s). Our technology department will be sending current emergency contact information out to all families in the upcoming days. Please take the time to review your emergency contact info and fill out the online form to update your information if needed.
School Safety
The safety and well-being of all students, staff, and guests remains our top priority. To this end, the leadership, faculty, and staff continue to work in close collaboration with local, state, and federal health, safety, and emergency agencies to maintain a safe environment for students to learn and for faculty and staff to accomplish their professional responsibilities. This summer, Ray Phinney, our School Safety Director, attended multiple trainings with renowned agencies, including the Maine School Safety Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the US Secret Service, and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. This comprehensive training enhances his expertise and allows him to oversee security practices within our schools.
As required by law, the Bangor School Department has a variety of safety plans including the Alert Messaging System mentioned above. We also have a partnership with the Bangor Police Department in which a liaison officer is assigned to work with staff, students, and parents on issues concerning student safety. Our commitment to school safety includes a comprehensive emergency management plan that is reviewed and revised annually to ensure that our policies and procedures are up-to-date with best practices and guidelines from leading safety organizations around the world. If you have any questions about a school’s safety plan, please contact your school principal.
CENTEGIX CrisisAlert and Standard Response Protocol
We are proud to be the first school district in the Northeastern United States to use CENTEGIX’s CrisisAlert. This emergency alert system, along with the implementation of the “I love you guys” Foundation Standard Response Protocol throughout our school department, allows us to further support and empower our staff to secure our schools.
With CrisisAlert, all staff wear a badge that empowers them to easily and discreetly request help from anywhere on our grounds. The CrisisAlert badge is easy to use and does not require staff to download an app to their personal mobile phone. CENTEGIX can immediately deliver alerts to school responders to help those who need it as quickly as possible. This is most used for medical emergencies, behavior situations, and other everyday safety incidents.
CrisisAlert can also activate a School-Wide Alert (Lockdown). With this type of alert, the goal is to immediately notify everyone in the area that the school is under a threat and to get to safety as soon as possible. CrisisAlert uses multiple audio and visual notifications to communicate the School-Wide Alert. Strobe lights flash and beep in every room and hallway; instructional messages are displayed on devices connected to the school’s network; and an intercom message is played. CENTEGIX immediately delivers that alert to school responders.
The Bangor School Department has adopted the Standard Response Protocol (SRP) for emergencies and has integrated it into our CENTEGIX CrisisAlert at all BSD schools. The SRP gives schools and their crisis response teams guidance for how to handle each type of emergency situation they may face. Students and staff are trained on the protocols throughout the school year. A parent guide has been included for your familiarization with our protocols and important actions that we ask of parents and guardians during an emergency.
CENTEGIX CrisisAlert and the Standard Response Protocol are important pieces of our Emergency Management plan. Our students and staff practice using these protocols multiple times during the year. In the event of a School-Wide Alert, parents and guardians will be notified by the school as soon as possible via our alert messaging system.
Enthusiastically yours,
James Tager
Superintendent
Bangor School Department
