State invests in new public school security measure: digital maps

During any response to a public school emergency, Hardy Allen can point to one pattern: “The first thing to break down is always communications.”

That risk is especially high in rural areas, when multiple agencies might be responding to a medical or public safety incident and information about the school might be scarce, says Allen, the northeast regional director of Critical Response Group, Inc.

This year, the New Jersey-based company is part of a statewide effort to remove those hurdles with one tool: standardized digital maps. 

A $2.6 million contract approved by the Executive Council this month will direct the company to partner with New Hampshire schools and convert those schools’ building plans into detailed maps. Those maps would then be shared with state and local first responders, including police and medical departments, to allow efficient responses during potential emergencies.

And the mapping process will provide another benefit, state officials say: identifying potential infrastructural weaknesses that persist in schools. 

“Right now there is inconsistency across the state,” said Department of Education Commissioner Caitlin Davis, speaking to the Executive Council on June 3. “… This item will put all of the schools in the state on the same playing field.”  

That patchwork system can create delays, Allen said. “A typical blueprint for even the newest school built in the state of New Hampshire is not going to have all the things that public safety cares about,” he said, such as office labels, roof access points, utility shutoff areas, defibrillators, and more. 

The plan, known as the Statewide Public School Critical Incident Mapping Project, comes after the state has distributed about $50 million in matched grant funding for public school districts seeking to upgrade their infrastructure, according to Davis. That funding has included a range of security technologies, from automatic door locking systems to security cameras.

The program launched in 2018 in response to a February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people, many of them students. But the money has flowed only to the districts that have applied for it. 

School districts will choose whether to opt in to the mapping project, and the procedure will be available to all districts or schools that want it, the contract states.

In the next year, Critical Response Group will create promotional materials such as letters and videos to encourage school districts to participate. For districts that do participate, the company will conduct walkthroughs to verify room locations, numbering systems, stair locations, and other information. The contractor will also collect floor plans from schools, as well as any existing digital mapping formats already used by the schools, such as computer-aided dispatch (CAD) maps.

For districts that don’t have up-to-date plans, the contract directs the company to deploy light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scanning to get 2D layouts and make their own CAD maps. When necessary, the company can use drones to map the school’s exterior campus, according to the contract. 

The goal: to replace “inaccurate or inaccessible floor plans” with maps in standardized digital formats, the contract states. All final maps would need to be approved by school superintendents. 

Allen said the maps will help responding agencies move quickly. 

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CAD maps, for instance, allow 911 dispatchers and first responders to pinpoint the exact location of emergency calls — such as those made within a school building. The maps could also be used by first responders to determine the best way to get to an emergency, assess all exits, locate relevant tools like defibrillators, and secure locking doors. 

“Let’s say there’s a teacher having a medical emergency in a classroom in Nashua,” he said in an interview. Someone at the school could tell a 911 dispatcher the exact room number of the classroom. That dispatcher could then identify that room on the shared, digital map, determine the best parking spot and entry point, and convey that information to the ambulance. Emergency medical technicians could then use the maps to head directly to the classroom door without further instruction.

“You’re giving public safety a ‘common operating picture,’” he said.  

The in-person walkthroughs conducted during the mapping process can help add relevant, school-specific information, Allen said. If a school employee or student calls 911 and refers to a room or area of the building using a colloquial nickname, that name may be on the map, giving dispatchers clarity more quickly. 

The digital school maps could also help with training and planning, and could highlight security cameras and panic buttons. 

Under the contract, the company will implement the mapping for all schools that participate in the next year. Critical Response Group will also carry out 27 “scenario-based tabletop exercises” to bring educators and first responders together to learn how to use the standardized maps. 

While the state of New Hampshire will own the digital map data, the company will be required to maintain the system for five years and update it as needed. 

Presenting the contract, Davis said the idea for the mapping project came from a joint meeting between the Department of Education and Department of Safety featuring “about 25 police chiefs.”

“(I was like), oh, what did I do?” Davis joked. After hearing the desire for standard school mapping systems, Davis passed the idea to the state’s School Safety Preparedness Task Force, formed in 2018 after the Parkland shooting.

The task force recommended putting aside $2.6 million of the latest $10 million from the state’s Public Schools Infrastructure Fund, Davis said. “This is really going to help move us forward as with our school safety initiatives,” she said.

The idea got bipartisan approval from the council. With the maps, law enforcement “can go into situations where you possibly have never been in the building or been around the neighborhood,” said Councilor Joe Kenney, a Wakefield Republican.

But Councilor Karen Liot Hill, a Lebanon Democrat, said the technology could take some struggling school districts — like Charlestown — only so far. And the mapping might reveal vulnerabilities that those school districts have little money to fix, she said. 

“I can see that mapping is the first step, but ultimately there’s going to presumably need to be some improvements made to infrastructure,” Liot Hill said.