SchoolSafe Communications Adds

$1 Million to School Safety Fund

School Safety Partners

November 24, 2009 -- SchoolSafe Communications, the leader in communications

technology for schools, announced today that it will underwrite $1 million in a first
round of grants to U.S. school districts through the new School Safety Fund
established by School Safety Partners.

The grants will support partnerships among school districts, local response agencies,
and other community resources to make schools safer, and will cover the costs of joint
school safety planning, training, drills, exercises, and evaluations. The grants are also
designed to help schools access major school safety funding from Federal sources and
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

The School Safety Fund promotes broad adoption of the National Incident
Management System (NIMS), the Incident Command System (ICS), and the
National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) for schools.

According to Denver-based School Safety Partners, these 3 Federal programs offer the
best platform for schools to address all hazards, including active shooter, animal threat,
blast, bomb threat, bus accident, chemical spill, earthquake, fire, flood, food
contamination, gas odor, intruder, lightning, non-custodial parent, pandemic outbreak,
power outage, tornado, violent student, and winter storm.

School Safety Partners expects to announce 20 grants in February, 2010, and will match
the SchoolSafe grants with contributions from other public, private, and academic
sponsors. In addition, awardees will receive independent consulting services throughout
2010 and 2011 to pursue additional funding from Federal agencies.

Guidelines for applying for the grants will be published Tuesday, December 1, 2009, on
the School Safety Partners web site at www.SchoolSafetyPartners.org.

Applications must be received, or filed online, no later than Friday, January 15,
2010.

Preference will be given to schools or school districts willing to complete a set of 15

implementation activities to achieve full NIMS compliance as required by the U.S.

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Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

All qualified applicants are entitled to a minimum in-kind contribution from the School
Safety Fund of administrative assistance and a web-enabled task management system to
help carry out the NIMS implementation activities.

About NIMS Implementation Activities

The U.S. Department of Education's overview of the NIMS implementation activities for
schools and higher education institutions can be viewed at
www.SchoolSafetyPartners.org/nims. In addition, the School Safety Fund will release a
guide to managing the 15 activities through a series of accelerated workshops at the
school or district level.

The following is an at-a-glance list of the 15 NIMS implementation activities.

1. Adopt NIMS at the school and campus community level.

2. Institutionalize the Incident Command System (ICS) for managing all emergency
incidents and pre-planned school and campus events.
3. Coordinate and support the development and use of an integrated Multi-Agency
Coordination System.
4. Establish a Public Information System within the ICS framework.
5. Establish NIMS strategy and timeline for full implementation.
6. Coordinate and leverage Federal preparedness funding to implement NIMS.
7. Update emergency management plans to incorporate NIMS and reflect National
Response Framework.
8. Participate in and promote interagency mutual aid agreements, to include
agreements with public and private sector and/or nongovernmental organizations.
9. Require key school and campus personnel to complete NIMS training.
10. Incorporate NIMS and ICS into all emergency management training and
exercises.
11. Participate in an all-hazard exercise program based on NIMS that involves first
responders from multiple disciplines and jurisdictions.
12. Incorporate corrective actions into preparedness and response plans and
procedures with community partners.
13. Maintain an inventory of organizational response assets -- equipment, resources,
and supplies.
14. To the extent permissible by law, ensure that relevant national standards and
guidance to achieve equipment, communication, and data interoperability are
incorporated into acquisition programs.

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 15. Apply standardized and consistent terminology for school and campus incidents,
including the establishment of plain English communication standards across the
public safety sector.

As explained by the Department of Education, NIMS uses a core set of concepts,

principles, procedures, processes, standards, and terminology that may all be integrated
with school emergency management practices. The collective use of NIMS across all
local incident response agencies, including K-12 schools and higher education
institutions, and disciplines creates a common operating picture, promoting mutual
goals and responsibilities, and ultimately, more efficient and effective response services.
Furthermore, in the event of a large-scale incident crossing multiple jurisdictions and
disciplines, NIMS unites all response teams across all of the participating jurisdictions
and facilitates effective and appropriate assistance from outlying communities when
needed based on the size and complexity of the incident.