Contract with CrisisGo App approved

Lake Forest D67 Board of Education

The Lake Forest School District 67 Board of Education unanimously approved a contract with CrisisGo App at its Monday, Feb. 23 meeting.

CrisisGo App is a rapid emergency communication system that, when downloaded, allows school faculty and staff members to access all the information needed in a crisis situation on their smartphones or tablets.

With the app, staff members can send an instant emergency alert to all school staff members, which will also alert the local emergency call center and the Lake Forest police officers who have the app downloaded. School maps and student attendance lists will also be accessible through the app. The app will be linked with Power School, Lake Forest schools’ emergency contact information list for students, for easy access to contact information as well.

Lauren Fagel, District 67 and 115’s outgoing assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, technology and assessment, explained what the CrisisGo App was at the board meeting.

“What’s most important to know [about the CrisisGo App] is that it doesn’t replace our current security protocol,” Fagel said. “It’s an enhancement, an add-on that we believe the vast majority of staff will take advantage of. It gives them the ability to access all the information needed in a crisis on their phones.”

Although district staff members would have to download the app on their personal smartphones or tablets, Fagel said she believes most staff members would download the app and use it in an emergency.

“We can’t require staff to download the app on their phones, but we anticipate that they would want to,” Fagel said. “Since it’s their personal phone we couldn’t do that.”

Fagel added that Lake Bluff School District 65 rolled out the CrisisGo App recently and that the district has seen “a lot of success” with it. She believes the app would be useful for Districts 67 and 115.

“[The app] lets adults in the building alert the entire staff in a crisis and it also allows the district to push out video messages and text messages to every adult with a phone,” Fagel said. “Adults can access all emergency contact [information] for students, with up to the minute attendance information. This is the next best practice in school safety.”

The main question board members and district officials had was about the use of students’ information by vendors in the app.

“Where is the data [with student information] stored?” board member Lesley Fisher asked.

“We’re [not] giving separate sets of information [to them], [they’re] just taking Power School, which is the emergency contact information and up to the minute attendance information,” Fagel said. “A company named CLEVER will work with schools and vendors to be the go-between for transmitting student information in the most secure way possible. We feel assured and our [districts’] technology experts feel very comfortable with the set-up.”

The CrisisGo App will cost Lake Forest school districts 67 and 115 $4,400 in its first year and $3,900 for every year after the first. Fagel reported that the district will see a soft roll-out of the CrisisGo App this spring, with a full roll-out and hands-on training for the adults interested in participating in using the app in the fall.

SIDEBAR

Elementary school world languages program discussed

Nicki Koetting

Editor

District 67 may see changes coming to its elementary schools’ world languages program, board member Lesley Fisher reported at the Feb. 23 meeting; however, those changes have yet to be determined.

Fisher said that the District 67 school board’s education committee met on Feb. 19 to discuss revising or reviewing the world languages program for kindergarten through fourth grades. The fifth through eighth grade program will stay intact, she said.

“The rationale for the revision or review of the [world languages] program is due to declining enrollment and the desires of the parents of the student population,” Fisher said. “We’re still in the vetting process for probable options.”

Currently, the world languages program in District 67’s elementary schools consists of exposing students to Latin in the second grade and exposing students to all four world languages (Spanish, French, Latin and Mandarin Chinese) in third grade. In fourth grade, students and their parents select one language for the student to learn and hopefully continue to learn through eighth grade and even into high school, Fisher said.

Cherokee Elementary School, however, is in the first half of a year-long pilot program that incorporates world languages into daily class time.

For the 2014-2015 school year, all students at Cherokee in full-day kindergarten, third grade and fourth grade participate in a daily “inspiration block.” During this block, students choose one of two areas of study: Mandarin language acquisition or STEM/Inquiry.

Students in the Mandarin inspiration block learn to read, write, speak, and listen to the Mandarin language. Students in the STEM/Inquiry inspiration block delve deeper into social studies and science topics by participating in projects that incorporate elements of science, technology, engineering and math.

If Cherokee’s inspiration block is approved for continuation by the District 67 Board of Education, then all students at Cherokee will participate in the inspiration block in 2015-2016.

Fisher said that options for future world languages programming were presented to the education committee and the common themes of discussion revolved around language choice, proficiency, the lack of qualified Latin instructors, the possibility of the inspiration block at Cherokee branching out to the district’s other elementary schools, and a myriad of other subjects.
“There was much brainstorming in the group, with everything from offering two languages in second grade to started in grade 1 instead of second,” Fisher said. “The final thought at the end of the committee was to pause on the recommendation of a new world languages program, as we are halfway through the first year of a pilot program at Cherokee.

“As the rest of district plans to follow the inspiration block soon — and I say soon because it may not take place in next couple of years — but if in fact it does, the language program might be better revamped at that time.”