Fort Lee Takes ‘Bold Step Forward’ in Keeping Students Safe

The Monday approved a two-year software license agreement with a provider of offline, interactive venue maps for smartphones in order to create detailed, mobile maps of all six public schools. Local police, fire units, other first responders and school administrators will be able to use the maps as a reference tool during emergencies, school officials say.

The agreement with MapEverywhere, a division of FastMall, LLC, comes at a cost to the school district of $495 a month and was born out of a recent security audit, according to Interim Superintendent of Schools Steven Engravalle.

“The maps will be hosted off‐premises with local police and fire units, as well as with school administrators, and will serve as a vital reference tool in the event first responders are needed,” said a MapEverywhere spokesperson in a statement announcing the agreement. “This innovative alliance will make Fort Lee Public Schools the first school district in the country to take a comprehensive and bold step forward in school safety.”

At Monday’s BOE meeting, Engravalle spoke about the technology, saying, “The company’s expertise has been with places like college campuses or shopping malls or airports.”

“We will actually have handheld, interactive maps of all of our schools that will be given to our emergency responders and our district administrators,” Engravalle said.

Powered by MapEverywhere’s patented MapOS technology, the maps will provide “state‐of‐the‐art, visually guided, turn‐by‐turn navigation that is not GPS or Wi-Fi dependent,” according to the company.

The maps can therefore be accessed “during the critical first moments” when responders and school officials are collaborating and can continue to be used after emergency responders enter a school building.

“It’s an absolutely groundbreaking technology that we’re embarking on,” Engravalle said. “We saw a need; we came up with a plan. And we really think that this is something special. We’re going to be mapping things like roofs; we’re going to be mapping boiler rooms and basements. There’s actually underground tunnels underneath our high school. All of that’s contained in this mapping.”

The school district is in the process of working with local police, fire and emergency management officials to develop maps for each of the schools that will include things like electrical cutoffs, where chemicals are stored and where AEDs are located, Engravalle said.

He added that they’re also working on integrating asset tracking and even attendance software.

“So any type of emergency situation, we’re able to know—in real time—what students are in the building or what students are in the classroom,” Engravalle said. “If there is a lockdown type of setting, we’re able to have a handle on who’s where and who do we need to help.”

The technology will also provide real-time access to the schools’ video cameras.

The only people who will have access to the technology will be emergency responders and school administrators, and it will work on any handheld iOS or Android device and be proprietary to the district. The technology is also updatable “as often as we need to,” Engravalle said.

“We’re going to be constantly evolving this system, but the price stays exactly the same,” he said, adding that “as we adapt, this will adapt to us. That’s the key is keeping it updated.”

With a police force the size of Fort Lee’s, the technology is going to particularly useful, Engravalle said.

“If they’ve never been to the school before, right away, they will know where that is; they’ll know how to get there,” he said. “It actually gives them turn-by-turn directions so if this an after-hours situation or a fire-type situation, and you know that that alarm has gone off in a certain area of the building, you know where it is; you know where the shutoffs are. We’re going to be the first public school in the country to have something like this. Several of our colleagues have already expressed interest—some of our neighbors—but we’re going to be ready to launch this very, very soon.”