January 26, 2022 – Westerville, OH — Status Solutions, the Columbus-based situational awareness company, announced today its collaboration with Bark, a parental controls company that gives parents and schools the ability to monitor student accounts for digital dangers. These two mission-driven companies are joining forces to achieve a common goal — helping to protect even more American schools, students, and teachers with state-of-the-art technology. Both companies have committed to providing their safety technology to schools at no cost.
Bark and Status Solutions were both spurred into action following devastating school shootings. For Status Solutions CEO Mike Macleod, it was Columbine in 1999. For Bark CEO Brian Bason, it was Parkland. They knew they had the ability and the technology to help make a difference in the lives of students across the U.S.
Both companies have kept up with the ever-changing apps and social media evolutions popular with students. With recent TikTok trends like “devious lick” thefts to the violent “slap a teacher” challenge, many schools are looking for ways to address these negative behaviors and detect possible threats before they become realities. Together, Status Solutions and Bark for Schools are providing schools with the tools they need to accomplish these goals.
Status Solutions has offered to provide their SARA (Situational Awareness and Response Assistant) platform at no cost to any U.S. school district. SARA allows schools to improve safety and communications by providing staff the ability to summon help from any web browser, which allows first-responders and law enforcement to be called quickly and discreetly. SARA also enables alerts to be sent discreetly from multiple devices.
“We’ve been protecting people and property for over 21 years, so leveraging our lifesaving technology to give back to our communities and protect our schools is just the right thing to do,” said McLeod. “That’s why we’re thrilled to collaborate with Bark — they have the same values and are dedicated to the mission of helping protect schools and their students.”
Bark for Schools is Bark’s K-12 community giveback program that detects potential issues in school-issued accounts — including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Chrome — to help protect students at no cost. Bark for Schools is made possible by the success of their product for families, a comprehensive parental control app that monitors content on texts and social media, blocks websites, manages screen time, and more.
“Bark for Schools is a promise to our community. It has always been and will always remain free. Our hope is that as many schools use it to combat the rising online threats that are occurring and help prevent future tragedies,” said Bason. “Working with Status Solutions will allow our schools to do even more once they pinpoint a threat through communication and instant response.”
About Status Solutions
Status Solutions is a provider of situational awareness technologies for life safety, security, environmental monitoring, and mass notification. The company’s customized solutions ensure the right information reaches the right people automatically via various portals and dashboards for faster, more efficient communication. From emergency alerting and response management to self-service, we help organizations better collect, process, interpret, and deliver their data. To learn more about the situational awareness technology offered to schools, visit their grant of use site or statussolutions.com.
About Bark
Bark is an award-winning parental controls company founded in 2015 by a parent who was looking for a way to help keep his kids safe online while preserving their privacy. Bark monitors text messages, emails, YouTube, and 30+ of today’s most popular social media platforms and apps for potential issues. It also gives parents the ability to manage their child’s screen time schedules, block websites and apps, and track location. Visit bark.us to learn more.
Status Solutions and Bark Raise Awareness of No-Cost School Safety Technology
