The Office of Non-Public Education along with the Department of Homeland Security has put together a program to send every non-public school in America a Public Alert Radio. The radio will be on loan from the Federal Government. Therefore, our schools will not be direct recipients of federal funding. There is an attached memo that further explains the program.
ACSI believes this is a great opportunity for every school to build the use of these radios into their crisis management plans.
Also known as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio All-Hazards, NOAA’s Public Alert Radio is a life-saving early warning tool that notifies radio users of all hazards in their area 24 hours a day/seven days a week, even when other means of communication are disabled. The radio will signal an audible alert with a visible indicator light as a “watch” or “warning” and a brief digital text message to advise on a wide range of emergency situations and post-event information for all types of hazards including: natural (e.g. earthquakes or avalanches), environmental (e.g. chemical releases or oil spills), and public safety (e.g. Amber alerts or 911 telephone outages).
There is a license agreement that the schools must submit. The license is just the school’s acceptance of the radio. However, this again does not cause any kind of federal funding problem for our schools. The Office of Non-Public Education of the DOE has worked hard to ensure this is not a problem. The memo also makes the same statement. It is also stated on the NOAA Radio website. There is an abundance of information on this site for our schools. We would suggest you review it and look over the FAQs for additional information.
NOAA Radio—August 08