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NYC Pilots Direct 911 Link in Public Schools to Speed Emergency Response

City officials say the in-house platform bypasses normal 911 call routing to initiate dispatch in under 10 seconds.

Overview

  • Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the Emergency Alert System at Brooklyn’s Spring Creek Community School, the first campus equipped under the pilot.
  • The test will expand during the 2025–26 school year to 51 schools housed in 25 buildings across all five boroughs.
  • Staff can activate alerts through fixed wall buttons or wireless lanyards, triggering a hard lockdown with audible and visual signals inside the building.
  • Real-time dashboards and electronic notifications will give NYPD School Safety and NYC Public Schools officials location-specific information during an incident.
  • The system was developed by the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation with SOS Technologies following a separate 2023 panic-button pilot tied to an FBI inquiry; officials cited K-12 School Shooting Database figures showing 351 incidents in 2023 and 336 in 2024.