Auburn Hills, Mich. –January 18, 2019–Munetrix, a public sector solutions provider offering data management, analytics and reporting tools for states, local governments and public school districts, revealed the findings of its 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 review of tracking data on Michigan’s mandated public school safety drills, finding improvements in timing and safety, and also some areas where schools are beefing up security efforts. Munetrix is the only Michigan entity tracking such data.
Per Michigan Public Act 12 of 2014, public school districts must run safety drills 10 times each year, for each building, for the following situations:
- Fire
- Tornado
- Lock Down
Note: Cardiac incident/AED checks are optional per the legislation, but 10% of school districts in the study have reported data on them.
Munetrix looked at data from a combined 4,025 public safety drills completed in the 2016 – 2017 and 2017 – 2018 school years from the 120 Michigan public school districts that use the Munetrix Public Safety Drill app for compliance and performance improvement. Of the 4,025 drills completed, 99% documented drill execution times and lessons-learned comments in the app.
Key findings include:
- Fire Drill average execution time improved 4 percent from 2017 to 2018
- Tornado average execution time remained virtually the same from 2017 to 2018
- Lock Down average execution times improved 6 percent from 2017 to 2018
The Munetrix Public Safety Drill app, which can also alert county emergency managers and first responders of an incident, allows for schools to submit feedback on drill results for each particular drill – and as this report shows, the overwhelming majority do. Munetrix Vice President and Co-Founder Buzz Brown said that while Michigan Public Act 12 doesn’t require comments, they are an acknowledgement of how seriously school administrators approach these drills.
“Comments for improvement cite the need to shut doors, keep students quiet and enhance communication among staff, including substitute teachers, but the majority of feedback emphasizes how smoothly the drills went and areas that were improved over previous drills,” Brown said. “The overall efficiency of the drill process and efforts noted for improvement reflect the safety-first philosophy of Michigan’s school leaders. It’s a good example of the school community and the state working together for a common goal of student safety.”
Bob Kittle, president of Munetrix, adds that Michigan Public Act 12 not only doesn’t require comments, it does not require school districts to include drill times in the documentation either.
“When a mandate is made for an issue, especially those that involve student safety and have time sensitivity – like safety drills – tracking the data is a great way to validate the impact of the legislation and can even help establish benchmarks,” Kittle said. “Munetrix is leading the way in this effort. We believe all legislation should require statistical capture and reporting to determine if the desired outcome was achieved. Think of how much more we could learn about the effectiveness of Michigan Public Act 12 if this data was being captured for every district, as just one example. You know the old saying, what isn’t measured can’t be managed”
Munetrix is holding a free webinar on Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 2 pm entitled Lessons Learned from Statewide 2018 Public Safety Drills. Register here for the webinar or visit https://www.munetrix.com/.
