Danvers moves Smith School alerts to district InformaCast after false lockdown

Superintendent Bauer told the School Committee the Dec. 29 lockdown at Smith School was an inadvertent activation caused by a fob with a cover and that the district has taken steps to prevent a recurrence.

"I can't sit here in this chair, superintendent, to allow this to happen again," Bauer said, describing a multi-agency debrief with the town manager, police, public works and technology staff and an immediate action plan. As part of that plan, the committee heard, the district has decommissioned the standalone Smith lockdown hardware and switched notifications to InformaCast, the district's existing, centralized notification system.

Principal Powers said staff and students followed training and that post-event supports — including outreach by the school social worker — were activated. "All lockdowns and notifications are now triggered through InformaCast," Powers said, noting the system delivers voice, text and email alerts to staff and automatically notifies the Danvers Police Department.

Committee members asked whether lessons from Smith would be applied districtwide. Bauer and Powers said the InformaCast platform was tested with staff and police, and that the district will improve multi-channel communications (phone, text, email) during incidents. The superintendent also said the District Threat Assessment Team and a January 26 district safety meeting will review additional procedures and reunification plans.

The committee did not take a formal vote on this topic; the updates were presented for information and operational direction. The district said it will continue testing and roll out classroom touch-panel integrations and staff training on InformaCast.