Alpine School District says it can now notify parents of a school emergency within eight minutes of an incident being reported.

The district published its standardized emergency communications protocol on Wednesday, Sept. 2, describing a system that handled about 25 emergencies or disruptions across its schools last year. Four of those incidents required evacuations and six triggered a SECURE status, according to Joe Hayes, the district's director of operations.

"Often the disruptions are relatively easy to resolve, but we still have to plan for the worst," Hayes said in the district's announcement.

Hayes said his team responded to wildlife on the loose, power outages and gas leaks at various schools. Not every school will face a serious incident, he said, but the district expects several each year across its 93 campuses. More serious situations trigger what the district calls the Standard Response Protocol, or SRP, a framework that gives students, staff and first responders shared language and actions during an emergency.

The protocol, two years in development, relies on a messaging platform called Apptegy. District office staff send alerts on behalf of individual schools via text, email and phone call. The communications team has pre-loaded message templates that are updated after each incident, and the system translates every alert into the recipient's preferred language.

That setup frees school staff to focus on student safety rather than drafting messages, according to Rich Stowell, the district's communications director. Stowell said the process now involves more of the right people and that the team looks for improvements after each incident.

Ruthie Cheeseman, assistant principal at Grovecrest Elementary in Pleasant Grove, said the centralized system lets administrators report an issue and then turn their attention to managing the situation on the ground. Her school evacuated last year as a precaution after staff detected an unidentified odor.

The announcement does not describe it as a binding policy standard or specify consequences if the target is missed.

Families who want to make sure they receive alerts should verify their contact information is current in Skyward, the district's student information system.