Wake Schools: New 'mobile command vehicles' will improve emergency response, communication

The Wake school system has three new mobile command vehicles that leaders said Tuesday will improve efficiency and communication during school crises.

2025-05-12

The school system showed one of the vehicles to the school board's safety and security committee Tuesday, displaying handheld communications devices, video screens and other equipment packed in the back of a nondescript sport utility car.

"This is onsite, real-time information that can be given to the command post," said Lance Canterbury, district director of security operations. "This ia game change."

The school system purchased the equipment for the mobile command vehicles using a 2024 grant from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

That equipment turned three vehicles into command centers that can coordinate emergency response from the field using communications tools, having uniform response and supporting student reunification with family members, if needed.

Outfitting the cars with the technology cost about $44,189 of the $486,800 grant. It's not clear how the rest of the grant has been spent.

The district already has a command center in the central office complex in Cary. The vehicles allow school officials to have a workstation on the site of a crisis or emergency. It includes communication tools, cameras and maps, among other things.

It's relatively rare for a school system to have mobile command vehicles, which are mostly used by law enforcement agencies, said Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based national school safety consulting firm. Schools don't necessarily need them if responding law enforcement agencies have them, he said, but the command vehicles can also be useful for school administrative purposes.

The Wake County school system doesn't have its own police force, but its safety office works regularly alongside school resource officers, who come from several different law enforcement agencies across the county.

The important thing, Trump said, is that groups responding to emergencies work together, regardless of who owns the command center.

"The ideal scenario is for school leaders and school safety officials to be in the same space with your law enforcement tactical teams and other decisionmakers from different agencies," he said.

If law enforcement were responding to the event, they would be in charge, Superintendent Robert Taylor said.

The district would not operate a command center if law enforcement were operating a command center, Canterbury said. But the district may run some incidents or operations by themselves, such as reunification after lockdown, he said.

"It's really about efficiency and access to information," Taylor said.

The district hasn't used the vehicles yet aside from drills, but they're operational.

Last summer, school system officials told county commissioners that they were also interested in a real-time security center in which security staff could monitor schools and react more quickly to emergencies.

The vehicles are one of the latest efforts to address safety concerns in the Wake County Public School System. The district has also given school employees access to a panic button app that puts schools in lockdown and now has a visitor management system that quickly screens visitors for things like protective orders or sex offender registries.

The district has also gradually expanded mental health services to about half of system schools, though the federal education department recently canceled a grant that would have further expanded services.

The school system has eyed additional physical security upgrades but not weapons or metal detection systems like some nearby school systems.

In 2023, a student died after Raleigh police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the Southeast Raleigh High School cafeteria. Guns have also been found on campuses from time to time, though both firearm and weapon possession dropped in the school system and across North Carolina during the 2023-24 school year, after rising following Covid-19 pandemic school lockdowns.

Trump said schools need to focus on many foundational efforts of safety and not just advanced technology or command vehicles, such as the additional mental health support the Wake school system has been expanding. School systems also need school resource officers -- which are in every Wake middle and high school and a few elementary schools -- some physical security and training to spot and respond to concerning behavior or situations, Trump said.

All North Carolina schools now must have a behavioral threat assessment team, and Wake has had those for a few years.

The school board's safety and security committee will also discuss the recent county and state pushes for safer gun storage at home. Last year, the school board passed a resolution supporting safe gun storage education efforts in schools and beyond, mirroring a statewide push intended to keep guns out of the hands of children or people wanting to do harm. The presentation on safer gun storage will include information about how non-firearm that resemble guns, such as a BB gun, also pose issues because of how they can be made to resemble actual firearms. Airsoft and BB guns, in addition to firearms, are also not allowed on school campuses.