Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Buzz Trexler
Star Correspondent

Elizabethton City Schools will have another level of security next fall after the Board of Education on Tuesday approved an upgrade that adds a panic button to staff badges.

Board members unanimously approved a $46,000 agreement with Houston-based Raptor Technologies for the Raptor Emergency Management Suite and Badge Alert System for the 2025-26 school year. The upgrade integrates with the current Raptor app so that “with a push of a button” a staff member can instantly alert everyone in the building to an emergency.

According to a company brochure, the device is small, lightweight and easy to use, with a straightforward design that makes it simple to operate in high-stress situations and provides “seamless communication across multiple channels.” If the panic button is pushed, it automatically sends an alert to designated personnel and shows within six feet the exact location of the person who sent the alert.

Director of Schools Richard VanHuss told board members some other districts already have the panic button technology and he believes it is going to be state-mandated “in the next year or two.”

“We really like all of the services that Raptor provides for us,” VanHuss said. “They also have a reunification plan. God forbid we have an emergency and we have to relocate and we’re trying to put together a plan to return students back to their parents, there’s a whole part of that technology system that allows us to do that. All of the students are in there.”

VanHuss said the school system conducted a relocation drill about two weeks ago internally with some teachers and administrators.

“So, I think it’s worth every penny that we’re investing in this,” the director said.

The school system traces its safety upgrades to 2022 — a year when there were 46 reported incidents and was said to be the worst year in U.S. history for school shootings since 1999, according to a Washington Post database. That was the year when the benchmark school massacre took place at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

In 2024 alone, the system took several steps, including:

— Implementing the Raptor emergency management system that allows school staff to report students’ locations and statuses in real time, call for lockdowns, initiate fire drills and evacuations, and report suspicious activity in a matter of seconds from their laptops or mobile devices.

— Installing additional fencing at Elizabethton High School and Harold McCormick Elementary School, as well as ballistic film on ground-level windows and doors.

— Contracting with Central Technologies Inc. of Knoxville to install electronic card readers on interior classroom and office doors at Elizabethton High School, East Side Elementary, West Side Elementary, T.A. Dugger Junior High and Harold McCormick Elementary.

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants from the U.S. Department of Justice help provide funding for school security measures.