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| Photo- Hardwire LLC |
The high-tech tablet — which hangs on a hook, measures 18 by 20 inches and comes in pink, blue and green — can be used as a personal shield for professors under attack, according to the company that makes it, and a portable writing pad in quieter times.
"It needs to be a great whiteboard and a useful tool so that it doesn't get hidden in the closet," said maker George Tunis. His Worcester County company Hardwire LLC starting out making military armor, then adapted it for the classroom after the tragic shootings last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed.
"When Sandy Hook happened … a light bulb went off that it's really the teachers and administrators" who need protection, the father of two said. "Those brave souls were trying to close the gap and get to the shooter and stop him, but they didn't have anything that could stop the bullets along the way."
High-profile incidents like Sandy Hook and the 2007 mass murder of 32 people at Virginia Tech have led campuses across the country to focus on safety.
They've developed assessment teams to evaluate potential threats and revamped policies to tighten security. And in Maryland next week, campus police from nine schools are taking a training course in recognizing mental illness to help them defuse potentially dangerous situations.
Body armor is the latest effort, security experts said.
"There are several vendors that have this type of personalized armor," said S. Daniel Carter, a national campus safety advocate.
"It's not something that is in much great use."
UMES is the first university to adopt Hardwire's technology, though the company said it has sold its bulletproof whiteboards, which cost $299 apiece, to roughly 100 lower-grade schools in five states, including Maryland. It also makes bulletproof door shields, clipboards and inserts for children's backpacks, all of which it sells online.
UMES President Juliette B. Bell said in a telephone interview that she decided to order 200 whiteboards for faculty using funds from the university's foundation account so the school could be "proactive rather than reactive" in a violent situation.
Located in the historic town of Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore, UMES has never experienced an "active shooter" incident, unlike some other Maryland schools, including Morgan State University, where a football player and a visiting student were shot in two separate events last year.
"Being able to respond accordingly is very important," Bell said, pointing to the Virginia Tech shootings. "It's all about being prepared."
UMES announced the deal from the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City. Hardwire had a booth set up there where Tunis, with the help of employees and his 14-year-old daughter, demonstrated his products.
Mark McLaurin, a political director with the union SEIU, stopped with several of his colleagues to marvel at his wares. They stared, and then they stared some more.
"It's startling to see," McLaurin said. "I took a picture of it. I couldn't believe it."
His union represents workers in Montgomery County schools, which Tunis considers a potential market.
G. Dale Wesson, a professor at the Eastern Shore university, gave it a once-over and determined that "it won't protect you from a bazooka, but it's something." He called it an alternative to arming teachers.
"You have different options to protect the students," he said from the conference.
Tunis envisions teachers using the whiteboards to fend off attackers individually or as a group, standing side-by-side to create a wall that could shield evacuating students or to fend off an attacker.
"It's designed to be a last resort and to buy you some extra time," he said.
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UMES needs to invest in a better campus security and increase the security camera with all the parking ticket money they get. Someone needs to build a sidewalk for the kids so they can walk to Royal Farms because I cant see half of them walking on the road at night.
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