(CBS-DETROIT) – Schools across the country are upgrading their outdated mapping systems to make first responder efforts in the event of an emergency seamless.
The military-grade maps are said to help law enforcement respond to incidents more quickly.
Outdated and often inaccessible maps can hinder law enforcement efforts to navigate to a precise location in complex school buildings.
Mike Rodgers, a former special operations captain in the U.S. Army, had the idea to upgrade systems across the country.
“My wife is a third grade teacher, and I was very concerned about the level of preparation and planning at her school and wanted to use a mapping technique used on the battlefield to allow for clear, concise communication and navigation,” said Rodgers, CEO of Critical Response Group. “And I initially applied that to my wife’s school.”
Ann Arbor Public Schools has implemented the maps districtwide.
Liz Margolis, AAPS executive director of school safety and district operations, said the maps can be accessed directly from police vehicles and provide crucial information at a moment’s notice.
“The map shows them very fine detail,” Margolis said. “Classroom numbers, where the emergency supplies are, what the hallways are. We also mark all our outside windows with the classroom number so they can easily match that to the maps and understand where a situation might be happening.”
The maps are two-dimensional images with layers of critical information.
The base layer is a map that has been checked for accuracy. The labels that match the building, such as ‘Art Room’ or ‘Classroom A’.
“Then we find the key features that are important from an emergency response perspective, which are fire access control panels, gas shutoffs, electrical disconnects, AEDS, things that responders look for during an emergency that are not normally on a map these days,” Rodgers said. .
“And finally, it’s displayed in a grid, similar to a game of Battleship. And the idea behind that is to make it very simple to use, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a police officer, a firefighter, a teacher, or a public safety telecommunicator, you can all speak this very simple common language. ”
The cards were funded through Michigan’s School Safety Grant Program.
Rodgers said the Critical Response Group has mapped 97 percent of the state’s public schools.
“Many districts had the opportunity to take advantage of the grant to create these maps, which is very important because school safety funding is so important to public school districts because we could really just get it from our general fund, which would take it away from our students,” Margolis said.
