“I went to school to be an English teacher, and now I have to be a security expert.”
PILOT POINT, Texas — Green means go. Red means turn around and run.
That’s the simple idea behind “Go to Green,” an emergency evacuation system that will be installed at Pilot Point ISD Wednesday.
Dozens of sensors will be installed in classrooms and hallways. If gunfire goes off, the technology will detect where the shooter is, and indicate with lights which way students and teachers should run.
“That’s why we call it Go to Green,” military vet and Go to Green CEO Ernie Williams said. “You see a green light, go to it. You see a red light, don’t go to it.”
The technology can be programmed for other types of emergency evacuations like tornadoes and chemical spills, Williams said, but right now the district is focusing on active shooters.
Go to Green also installs cameras in between each sensor, which will be monitored by real people, Williams told WFAA.
So if a camera sees another shooter with a gun, even if it hasn’t fired, his team can manually turn a sensor red to warn students not to go toward the shooter.
“Our biggest worry is he shoots down here, he’s got a second shooter down here, everyone’s running down that direction — what happens if you have a secondary shooter,” Williams said.
Williams has developed his program over the last two years at the Collin Creek Mall in Plano, which is empty and under construction.
He gave WFAA a firsthand look at the process.
“When the shot goes off you immediately get a text message,” he said.
Pilot Point ISD Superintendent Todd Southard said he wishes education was able to be the top priority in schools, but knows these days safety must come before anything else.
“I went to school to be an English teacher, and now I have to be a security expert,” he told WFAA. “That’s very different than what my original plan was but…that’s the world we live in. And we’ve got to do it.”
Williams told WFAA the city of Anna is also using his technologies, and that he’s in talks with warehouse and grocery store chains.
