COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Multiple Cobb County schools went into lockdown Monday afternoon. The district says that "human error" prompted a code red in several schools and that it is being treated as a personnel matter.
One Cobb County mother, who asked to remain anonymous because she works for the district, said she got a text message from her son just after 1 p.m. Monday.
It read, "Mom there's a code red. I love you."
"The [alarm] went off and said code red, and they all went into the classroom in the dark, and he said he didn’t see how it could actually protect them," she told 11Alive over the phone. "It’s scary to get that text and know it could be the last one you’re getting from your kid. When I talked to him later he said he wasn’t scared but he just wanted to text in case he died.”
She said her son was later told it was a drill.
However, the district tells 11Alive in a statement:
"Earlier today, and through human error, one of our staff members accidentally triggered a Code Red at multiple campuses. This incident is being handled as a personnel matter. At no time was there any threat, nor were any of our students or staff in danger.”
Heather Tolley-Bauer with watchdog group Watching the Funds Cobb feels like this is Deja-vu.
Less than two years ago, a similar situation happened in all of Cobb’s 115 schools, with a different security system in place.
That former system, AlertPoint, cost the district about $5 million.
“Different product, different company, same problem," she said. "This is getting old. We're getting tired of this. Really, where’s the accountability because this keeps happening and no one is being held accountable."
The newer system installed in the fall, Centegix, cost the district nearly $3 million.
We asked the district how many schools were affected on Monday but have not heard back.
Tolley-Bauer said her group was able to confirm at least eight of the affected schools as of Monday night. These included: Campbell Middle School, Nickajack Elementary, Teasley Elementary, Norton Park Elementary, McEachern High School, Blackwell Elementary, Smyrna Elementary, and Durham Middle School.
“If they say it’s a personnel matter, we’ll never even know what went wrong with it because they won’t have to talk about it publicly and they won’t talk about it publicly," Tolley-Bauer added. "We’ll never know, 'Was this a design flaw? Was it a problem with training?'”
We reached out to Centegix - the company in charge of the current security system. It tells 11Alive:
"Our CrisisAlert solution does enable authorized users to initiate campus-wide alerts at multiple locations. However, over 98% of CrisisAlert usage is for everyday emergencies, such as medical or behavioral situations. To clarify regarding the alert in Cobb County on Monday, there was no malfunction to the system, and we understand the district communicated that the "Code Red" was due to human error by a staff member."