Schools play a critical role in keeping students safe from harm. While the potential threat of a shooting or bombing is (thankfully) a rare occurrence in Australia, one Melbourne school isn’t taking any chances.

The devastating Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last year was the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in American history, after 20 children and six staff members lost their lives.

While the tragedy prompted a renewed debate about gun control in the US, it was also a harsh reminder of the duty of care that schools throughout the world must shoulder. Australia is no exception to this rule, or the devastating results when things go wrong – just over a decade ago, a shooting took place at Monash University in Melbourne where a student shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.

Such past events have contributed to a leading independent school in Melbourne’s decision to implement a site-wide audible evacuation and lockdown system to safely manage the movement of staff and children onsite in the event of a crisis. This is not only in the case of a fire, but also in the face of a potential bomb or sniper threat.

It certainly isn’t a standard request from an Australian school. In this case, Australian Technical Services (ATS) was called upon to develop the concept from system design right through to installation. The end result has been dubbed the ‘School Guardian’, a system for coordinated site-wide communications in emergency situations.

Upon completion, the project was awarded a Certificate of Commendation at this year’s National Electrical and Communication Association (NECA) Excellence Awards.

“ATS is extremely good at the unusual. If a project is not the norm or has never been done before, we’re the company of choice,” ATS managing director Ainslie Allen says.

“The School Guardian project started from a concern raised from the client due to an unfortunate tragedy involving a gunman at a school in the US. While the school had crisis management plans in place, it was very hard to manage due to the size of the campus and the number of buildings involved.”ATS was asked to investigate what system could be implemented to manage an evacuation for various buildings scattered over the campus – a process that spanned over four years. While the original concept was modelled on the senior campus, it was eventually decided to redesign and integrate multi-vendor equipment at the school’s junior campus in late 2012, with works completed at the end of March this year.

 “The system needed to utilise, where possible, the existing fire system evacuation speakers and associated cabling and equipment. If no fire system was in place, we had to install the required equipment and speakers with a view to meet future fire system requirements, as well as the future installation of school bells and security cameras,” Ainslie explains.

The installation included seven new fire indication panels (FIPs), modifications to three other FIPs, evacuation speakers and wiring throughout the school, wireless communication equipment and the manufacture, configuration and integration of IP addressable systems into standalone FIPs. The typical field equipment installed within the fire panel housing included an EVAC amplifier, industrial standard Ethernet I/O module, IP addressable audio streaming device, IP addressable intercom, data link, industrial switch, custom developed ATS speaker output verification module, noise suppression module and power supply.

Not only did the system have to communicate effectively over a large site consisting of 10 buildings, it also had to sport a simple interface and be easy to use, particularly in the stressful event of an emergency. Interestingly, it works as a standalone system, with no connection in any way to the school IT infrastructure.

In order to achieve this, the only option was to go wireless.

“The School Guardian concept to our knowledge has never been done wirelessly before. It consists of multi-vendor equipment all integrated into an overall robust standalone system,” he says.

“If you were working on a brand new building site you’d probably wire it, but we managed to tie everything together with a user-friendly interface that staff can understand, especially if they’re in a panic.”

Given the unique nature of the project, the team at ATS came across many hurdles. As the bulk of the installation took place over the Christmas holidays, there was some difficulty in obtaining equipment from overseas.

The toughest task, however, revolved around developing the control software and a custom-written touch screen operator interface.

“There were a few different software companies/vendors involved originally. We took a couple of their products and tied them together and put a head end on it to make it more user-friendly. In doing so, we assisted a global software supplier to resolve a bug in their application system,” Ainslie says.

He goes on to explain that the home screen on the touch panel shows system status information, where a person can select certain buildings or select all for an evacuation or lockdown (where students and staff remain inside the building). A combination of both scenarios is also supported across the different buildings.

“The system has been built around the fact that in the future, it can tie in security and access control where we can open, shut or lock doors. Additionally there is now a school-wide PA facility where operators can page individual areas, multiple areas, all indoors, outdoors or the entire school grounds. Future expansion of the system will also include a new scheduled and managed school bell system.”

As most of the team had not been involved in a complex wireless configuration, ATS conducted training sessions and educated school staff on the functionality and operation of the system – which was particularly important in terms of the lockdown feature.

“We gave the school some information and advice but they had to develop their own lockdown procedure because it was outside our area of expertise,” he says.

“In an evacuation scenario we’re actually activating the evacuation tone from the fire panel, so it’s a stock standard part of their fire training. Where it became a bit of a challenge was the tone that was used for lockdown. In the end we went for a basic tone that wouldn’t scare the students – it’s about getting the kids into a quiet, calm environment as quickly as possible.”

To ensure the integrity of the system, ATS conducts multiple system checks including automatic online/offline polling and error reporting, an automatic physical output function test via its own multi frequency output detection device, as well as email alerts.

“There’s a central control system situated in an admin area within the school that communicates constantly to every panel that’s out in the field. If anything goes offline or there is a problem, it goes back to our office.

“We do daily checks every morning to effectively evacuate the whole school, but you can’t hear anything because we’ve put the tone on a higher level than humans can hear. We’ve developed a little sensing device to pick up that signal and there’s one on every system and panel in each building, so we can get confirmation that everything is working as it should.”

While the system was specifically designed to be installed at this particular school campus, ATS is continuing to develop the system into a marketable product that could be made available to the wider community.

“The School Guardian system that has come from this development is state-of-the-art and novel in its approach to solving the multi-building and cabling infrastructure issues onsite,” Ainslie says.

“We’re certainly in a position now where we could change the name to University Guardian, Hospital Guardian etc. Basically this concept will work, and work well, in any existing project with multiple buildings.

“While we hope the School Guardian is never used, we know that if required it will be ready to assist staff in managing, protecting and saving lives throughout the school site.”