K-12 Market Deployments of Sielox Access and Emergency Notification Solutions Continue to Accelerate
Sielox LLC entered unchartered waters when company management made the decision to take its innovative approach to access control for commercial and industrial applications and apply it towards the development of a new and more efficient means of emergency notification and protection for the K-12 market. The result of this important work was the release of its groundbreaking CLASS™ (Crisis Lockdown Alert Status System) product in 2014. At that point, the next challenge arose, and Sielox began educating school officials on the unique safety benefits CLASS provides for K-12 facilities through a continuing series of educational webinars.
“The sales cycle for Sielox CLASS took a bit longer than traditional access solutions we’ve been successfully marketing for years into commercial and industrial markets,” said Karen Evans, President and CEO, Sielox LLC. “Ironically, but understandably, the process of introducing a new technology-driven solution into the education marketplace required Sielox to educate school security teams about the unique patented benefits CLASS provides.”
Sielox also focused on expanding their business partner sales channel with integrators already working in the education vertical market.
“With our growing network of sales professionals, we have steadily increased our visits to school municipalities and participation in educational forums across the country – and CLASS continues to receive a great response,” continued Ms. Evans. “As CLASS continues to increase in popularity and reputation, word continues to spread within the tightly knit K-12 education community as to its effectiveness as a cost-efficient daily incident and emergency notification and lockdown solution.”
CLASS is a highly-effective resource ideal for K-12 schools and other campus environments to issue alerts and manage all hazards, including daily events like missing person and medical as well as threatening situations including inclement weather and more. Innovative patented features of CLASS include real-time communication of instructions; dynamic floor plans to pinpoint areas of concern with real-time status updates, and an audit trail of all events and communications for after-action reports. Integration with access control, video surveillance, mass notification and paging systems provides the ability to use existing systems and tie those security layers together to work seamlessly in any incident or emergency.
Beyond the K-12 market, a recent deployment at a courthouse has validated how the unique CLASS software solution can dramatically improve emergency notification and response capabilities, saving time and potentially saving lives.
CLASS can be implemented as a stand-alone emergency notification and response system, or easily upgraded as a layered security solution with full access control capabilities provided via Sielox’s industry-leading Pinnacle® Access Control Software suite and 1700 Intelligent Controller. The Sielox suite of layered security solutions includes industry-leading wireless locks from Allegion® further enhancing its cost-efficiency as a lockdown solution for K-12 schools.
CLASS is successfully deployed in hundreds of locations across the U.S. with the addition of Sielox Pinnacle Access Control and 1700 Controllers either in place or slated for future installation. In some instances, school districts have opted to start the layered security approach by first installing a Sielox access control solution followed by CLASS. In either case, the order of implementation is inconsequential and varies with the needs of the user. Sielox CLASS has been made easier for schools to purchase by its availability through State Cooperative Purchasing Programs (such as PEPPM) and inclusion on GSA contract schedules.