San Dimas Company Says They Can Protect Children Without Impeding Education
SAN DIMAS (CBSLA.com) — School shootings, like the tragedy at Sandy Hook, have had parents and students on edge.
"You just have random shootings and things that happen within a school these days and so you could do a lock down state and put bars on the windows and metal detectors in and have dogs runninga round sniffing everyone but the problem is it impedes education," says Jeff Bond of the firm Future Concepts.
Bond tells CBS2's Adrianna Weingold his company can protect schools better.
The concept is called NEXAR SOS — a monitoring and security system for schools. (Nexar stands for Notification Exchange And Response.)
It works with the push of a panic button.
After a school administrator pushes the button, the school is virtually locked down all at once -- every classroom locks, security cameras are activated and law enforcement agents (even off the campus) can see and speak to people in each classroom.
"This is something where the law enforcement directly control the school instantaneously. As soon as the panic button is activated, law enforcement has direct control so while they're in response, now your station can be doing something," says Wayne Tolosa, CEO of Future Concepts.
Tolosa believes the system has the capability to save lives by quickly giving law enforcement eyes and ears inside a disaster situation before they arrive on scene.
"While they're commuting or in route to that incident they can respond effectively, they're starting to make decisions. Most of these things are over in three to five minutes, and they're usually not on scene at that time."
The system costs about $40,000 to install and $3,000 per classroom after that.
Tolosa believes the cost of not installing the system is much higher.
The system is running in two schools in Oregon. Several schools across Southern California are also contemplating signing on.
