Two Kane County Regional Office of Education employees have developed an iPad app that’s helping to improve school safety statewide.

Director of Technology Phil Morris and Health & Life Safety Inspector Mark Bozik have created an iPad app to better perform inspections of school buildings. More than 45 regional superintendents and inspectors from Illinois gathered at the ROE this past Tuesday for the statewide training program.

Morris said the app will ensure a more-consistent statewide inspection system and help school districts throughout Illinois save money. It’s also appealing to anyone with an eco-friendly mindset.

“We want to minimize non-productive tasks, like paperwork and manual data entry, which is time-consuming and also creates vulnerability to errors,” he said. “We want to ensure all school-related buildings and the neighboring areas are kept safe, and if repairs are needed, they are brought to code in a timely fashion.”

Bozik noted that in addition to a standardization of protocol, it would store data in a central location.

“Since all regional offices in Illinois will be using this app moving forward, we’ll be able to analyze the statistics and more-reliably spot any trends that emerge,” he said.

The Kane County ROE has been using this app to inspect all school buildings since 2011, but it wasn’t until early 2014 that the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools decided to adopt the same procedure statewide.

“We are updating the app daily based on the feedback we’ve received. Since our first training session on Tuesday, we have updated the software three times with improvements,” Morris said.

Next week, Morris will be training 45 more regional superintendents and inspectors in Springfield.

All school-related buildings including temporary/mobile classrooms in the Kane County ROE jurisdiction are inspected annually to ensure compliance for health and safety. To learn more about the ROE’s services, please visit the ROE website.