MoCo Schools Receives $ 499,000 For Safety
The Montgomery County School System has received a $499,000 grant to help improve safety technology within the district, according to Federal Programs Director Julie Harrelson and Technology Director Billy Goodwin.
Harrelson said that the need for a technology grant has grown in recent years, as the district discovered that the Centegix emergency alert system – which was purchased with Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, which the school received as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic – did not work properly with the school’s intercom system.
“I knew that there were over 100 districts in Georgia using it successfully, so I knew it couldn’t be the company and had to be continued from page
something here,” she remarked. “It seemed to be problem after problem after problem. We thought may- be the middle/high school's intercom maybe didn’t have the functionality and the elementary school one was just too old. No one really knew how much all of this would really cost.”
After the district hired Goodwin earlier this year, Harrelson began working with the technology director to price the costs of replacement intercoms, as she had been holding back funds with the hopes of purchasing a new system. Yet, the estimates which Goodwin received were much higher than what Harrelson expected, leading her to begin to weigh her options.
“We knew that there needed to be some completion with our Centegix system. Our middle/high school intercom system was not capable of connecting with Centegix, and the intercom system at the elementary school was just too old. When we priced intercom systems, they were $100,000 a piece. So, we knew at the moment that we didn’t have the money to do that,” Goodwin commented.
During this time, Harrelson discovered a potential third party grant through the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Secure Our Schools grant. Through this grant, the school could receive up to $500,000 to improve safety on campus, as long as a 25% match was given by the district.
“You could do things like emergency notification systems, intercoms, digital signage, door access control, and camera systems,” she said.
Harrelson and Goodwin worked together to submit the grant application with the help of Jackson Jensen, an Illinois grant writer who had worked in a school system that recently received the grant. They provided a 17page 60-question report on demographics, safety, and plans to sustain safety within the district, as well as letters of support from Senator Blake Tillery, Montgomery County Sheriff Doug Maybin, local business owner and parent Mindy Thigpen, Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Ronda Hightower, Montgomery County High School Principal Will Adams, and Montgomery County High School Teacher Elizabeth Adams.
The school system was one of 3 schools in Georgia to receive the grant, and was awarded $499,000 through the program. This funding will be used to purchase new intercom systems that will work seamlessly with the current Centegix system.
“This is not just a regular intercom system. This intercom system comes with digital signs, and LED boards that will be in lunchroom and gyms so that if something happens while the area is loud, the board will light up and tell everyone that something is happening. There will be hallway signs that have display messages scrolling so that the hearing impaired will be able to see in a message if something is going on at the school system that they need to act or react to,” Goodwin shared.
In addition to these new intercom systems, the money will also be used to upgrade the district’s current camera system with new software, and will begin the installation of entry access technology within the schools, which will be completed in later years.
These projects could take up to 3 years to complete, and a timeline has not been established for their purchase and installation.
