Right now, there's a new tool in Harrisonburg schools, keeping your kids safer than ever before.

"Safety is the main theme here," says Craig Mackail, Director of Operations and Community Outreach with Harrisonburg City Schools. "Anything we can do to keep our students safer, and one of the keys to doing that is communication."

That's why Harrisonburg City Schools bought nine emergency radios. Now, with the click of a button, schools can talk to each other and to bus drivers.

"It just makes things so much easier for us, so much easier for transportation and absolutely safer for the students," says Mackail.

Safer because not only do these radios dial 911, it has a special button for life or death situations. If someone's life is in danger, this red button will send their call to the top of dispatchers' lists.

"It gives our administrators kind of a safety blanket," says Mackail. "If something really bad happened in our schools, they could hit that button and fire and rescue would know right away.

Every school in Harrisonburg has one of these radios. One of the administrators has it with them at all times. If they have to leave for some reason, it stays in the office, so someone is always listening.

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