​What do you do when faced with an emergency situation to spread the word immediately without causing a panic? DIR-S is used almost every day in different situations our clients find themselves in.
 
When schools and organizations using DIR-S are all familiar with the application and have taken the time to become proficient with it, reaction times are cut down to mere minutes. As can be seen in the case study below, this school was able to react to the threat posed to them in a matter of minutes, when managing this same type of situation might have taken well over an hour to manage.
 
(Names and Locations Changed for Privacy)
LOCKOUT alert initiated at 8:32 a.m. by Responder Chris Trager.
8:33 a.m. (District Administrator): This is not a drill; I will keep you all informed here on DIR-S as I can.
8:35 a.m. (Responder): Report of person in the student parking lot waving a weapon out the window. Vehicle located unoccupied in the North student parking lot with an air soft gun inside. School remain in lockout while we investigate.
8:45 a.m. Alert ESCALATED to LOCKDOWN by Responder Chris Trager.
8:46 a.m. (Responder) For safety reasons we escalated to a lockdown. There were five students potentially involved. Working on getting them all contained.
8:54 a.m. (Responder): Lifting the LOCKDOWN. All students have been identified and contained. No weapons outstanding.
 
Because of DIR-S, this situation which could have caused a panic and taken hours to handle was completely taken care of in a matter of roughly 30 minutes. No one was harmed, and everyone involved in the situation was able to stay informed as to the information pertinent to them.

In this video, we run through the steps a teacher, or "base user," should take when they receive a "Lockdown" alert on DIR-S (duress). 
Since DIR-S is used often in high stress situations, we have gone to great lengths to make it as user friendly and simple of a process as possible. To aid in this, we provide in this video a step-by-step rundown of what to do. 

In this video, we run through an example of how to conduct an Evacuation procedure from a smartphone using DIR-S (duress). Similar procedures are used when sending out other alert types from smartphones; this particular video is taken in the context of an evacuation. 

​In the video above, we show how to run an Evacuation drill from your desktop app. We run through the drill from the perspective of a school administrator. 
Make sure and view our blog regularly to see more DIR-S tutorial videos as they are made. They will be covering a wide variety or situations and scenarios where DIR-S can be used to handle the situation in the most effective way possible. 

We recently had the opportunity to meet with Thane Hutchinson, the Principal of Mount Logan Middle School. He has been using DIR-S for the past few years and had some wonderful things to say about DIR-S, and how it has helped his school 

3:08 p.m. LOCKDOWN alert initiated by (Teacher 1)
3:09 p.m. (Principal): What’s the problem?
3:09 p.m. (Teacher 1): A student brought a gun.
3:11 p.m. (Principal): Police are notified and on the way. Does he still have it?
3:11 p.m. (Teacher 1): Yes. No shooting. He’s Really mad.
3:12 p.m. (Principal): Help is coming. Description of the student?
 
To protect the privacy of those involved, no more chat transcript will be provided.
 
Thankfully, police arrived on scene moments later and were able to get the situation under control without anyone being harmed. Thanks to DIR-S, the teacher was able to stay in discrete and active communication with the principal. All other teachers were able to stay up to date on the situation without any major disruptions to their classes, other than ensuring that their students stay in the room. Moreover, being able to remain in real-time communication with DIR-S helped reaction times remain at a minimum, and everyone in the school was kept safe.​

​Armed youth on the run.
 
1:17 p.m. HALL CHECK ALERT initiated by Site Admin (Principal) Maureen O’Hara. Location Main – 1 Flr – Office
 
1:17 p.m. (Dispatch): Is this a drill?
 
1:17 p.m. (Principal): This is not a drill. Keep kids in from recess but keep classes going.
 
1:17 p.m. (District Official): Watching from the District Office.
 
1:18 p.m. (Teacher 1): What is the issue?
 
1:18 p.m. (Police Officer): I am on scene… we are okay.
 
1:18 p.m. (Teacher): I have Samuel Davis Jr. in my room.
 
1:18 p.m. (Police Officer): We have an incident going on in the area and are taking extra precautions.
 
1:19 p.m. (Teacher 2): I have James Stewart in the media center.
 
1:19p.m. (Principal): Juvenile ran away from home in the area. Gun and mags missing. Sherriff’s office is here and monitoring.
 
Thankfully, the police were able to find this young man, and no one was harmed in the incident. Because of the communication medium provided by DIR-S, the happenings in the school were able to continue basically as usual, and police were able to keep the school and district officials updated throughout the situation. Especially beneficial, was the fact that they were able to avoid the panic that can easily ensue in these types of situations. 

​This past week, I have been calling our clients individually. I still have a large number of them to call, but I have been able to learn a lot from the ones I have called already.

We want our clients to know how much we appreciate them. This is why we are taking the time to call every all of them. I would like to share a couple stories from my phone calls to schools this week.

At every school, I explain who I am and why I am calling, I then ask them how DIR-S has been treating them so far this school year. At one of the schools, the principal admitted that they had not drilled with DIR-S very much last school year. This year though, they have drilled with it regularly, and it has worked flawlessly for them. He said that they were glad to have it in their school and that having it installed and being familiar with it has instilled among the faculty and staff of the school a heightened sense of security. They feel more comfortable because they know how to use their emergency communication system effectively. 

This made me feel very good because it shows that even our clients sometimes take some time to truly understand how much of an asset DIR-S can be. When schools run regular drills, using DIR-S, they become more prepared to face whatever real situations might arise.

In another instance, when I was talking to the principal of the school about how their experience with DIR-S has gone so far, we were able to troubleshoot an issue that they had been having. Upon closer examination, it turned out that the issue was merely because they had not updated the new users in their admin portal. She was able to contact their district officials with access to those capabilities and rectify the situation in short order. 

In this day and age, schools have staff changes every year, and with every new staff member at the school, that needs to be updated in the DIR-S system. We have made DIR-S very user-friendly, so this process can be done very painlessly. Like any system like this though, it requires the care and small time investment needed to ensure that all user locations and names are accurate.

It is exciting to see how pleased our customers are with DIR-S. There has been a lot of work put into it, and we are continually working to make it as good as it can possibly be. Reaching out to our clients and being able to learn about the experiences they are having with DIR-S has been a very rewarding project because it has allowed me to connect with our customers and hear about how they have been using DIR-S to help ensure the safety of everyone in their school.