Technology is transforming how school districts operate, communicate, and protect their communities. From artificial intelligence and cybersecurity to connected emergency response systems, education technology leaders are navigating a rapidly evolving landscape of opportunities and challenges. But as districts invest in increasingly sophisticated technologies, an important question remains: Are these systems working together to create safer, more resilient schools?
That question will be particularly relevant at the 2026 CITE Annual Conference, taking place November 17–19 at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. The event brings together education technology professionals, district leaders, and industry innovators to explore emerging technologies, share practical strategies, and discuss the future of technology in K–12 education.
For CENTEGIX®, the conference represents an opportunity to connect with the leaders responsible for ensuring that technology investments translate into meaningful improvements in school safety. As districts evaluate new school safety solutions, they must consider not only the capabilities of individual systems but also how those systems support a comprehensive school safety plan and work together when emergencies occur.
We're looking forward to exploring these conversations, connecting with fellow technology innovators, and demonstrating how integrated safety technology can help schools respond faster and more effectively. Attending CITE 2026? Visit CENTEGIX at Booth 223 to join the conversation.
What Can Education Technology Leaders Expect at CITE 2026?
The CITE Annual Conference is one of California's leading gatherings for education technology professionals, bringing together approximately 1,500 attendees and more than 340 exhibit booths. Its programming addresses the technologies, infrastructure, and leadership strategies shaping school districts, making it an important opportunity for IT professionals to exchange ideas and explore solutions to shared challenges.
This year's keynote lineup includes Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, whose contributions to personal computing helped reshape the relationship between technology and everyday life, and bestselling author Susan Cain, whose work explores personality, leadership, and the ways people contribute to organizations. Their participation reflects the conference's broad perspective on innovation and the people responsible for putting new ideas into practice.
Among the many educational sessions, several discussions are especially relevant to school technology leaders responsible for emergency preparedness, infrastructure resilience, and connected safety systems.
One session we're particularly interested in is "Are Your Safety Systems Ready for a Real Emergency? Aligning Strategy, Technology, Response, and AI in K12," featuring Anthony Bastian, Isaac Johnson, and Paul Llanez. The session's focus raises an important consideration for districts: Having emergency technologies in place is only one part of preparedness. Those technologies must also support coordinated action when an incident unfolds.
We're also looking forward to the conversation around "From Fragmentation to Strategy: Designing a Districtwide Approach to AI and EdTech," featuring Michael Robbins and Gerardo Martinez. As districts adopt new platforms and emerging technologies, reducing fragmentation and improving interoperability are increasingly important operational priorities.
Other discussions, including Carlos Miranda's session on disaster recovery planning and the conference's broader programming around cybersecurity and IT leadership, reinforce a common theme: Technology investments must strengthen organizational readiness, not introduce new complexity.
Attendees can explore the official CITE conference schedule to identify sessions relevant to their district's priorities.
Are School Safety Systems Ready When Technology Fails?
School safety technology is most valuable when it remains accessible and reliable during the moments it is needed most. For district technology leaders, that means considering what happens when networks go down, communication systems become unavailable, or an emergency occurs in a location with limited connectivity.
The U.S. Department of Education's emergency planning guidance emphasizes comprehensive emergency operations planning, collaboration with responders, and regular training and exercises. Similarly, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's K–12 School Security Guide identifies communication and notification technologies as important components of school emergency response.
But a school safety plan also depends on the reliability of the technology supporting it. An emergency alert system that becomes unavailable during a network outage can create a critical gap between recognizing an emergency and requesting assistance.
When a Cyberattack Disrupted a School District, Its Safety System Remained Operational
In October 2025, Kearney Public Schools in Nebraska experienced a cyberattack that compromised its technology network. Phones, computers, and other network-dependent systems became unavailable, creating significant operational challenges for the district.
Despite the disruption, the district's CENTEGIX Safety Platform® remained operational because its emergency alerting infrastructure operates on private networks rather than depending on the school's Wi-Fi. Superintendent Jason Mundorf reassured families that the district's safety protocols remained intact and that its CENTEGIX rapid response system continued functioning. This resilience helped the district maintain classes despite the broader technology disruption.
The experience, documented in Kearney Public Schools' impact story, illustrates why infrastructure resilience should be a central consideration when evaluating school safety solutions. For technology leaders, the question isn't simply whether a system works under ideal conditions. It's whether the system can continue supporting emergency response when other technologies fail.
That distinction is particularly important for school safety devices and their communication infrastructure. CENTEGIX CrisisAlert™ uses private wireless networks to support wearable emergency alerting, helping staff request assistance without depending on campus Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity. As CITE attendees explore cybersecurity, disaster recovery, and infrastructure modernization, these considerations provide an important connection between IT resilience and physical safety.
How Can Connected School Safety Solutions Eliminate Technology Fragmentation?
School districts increasingly rely on multiple technologies to protect their campuses: emergency notification systems, video surveillance, digital mapping, access control, mass communications, and emergency management software. Each may provide valuable capabilities, but the effectiveness of the overall response depends on how well these systems communicate and coordinate.
When technologies operate independently, staff may need to manually relay incident details, switch between platforms, or contact multiple teams before the appropriate resources can be deployed. Those additional steps can create delays when every second matters.
The CISA K–12 School Security Guide for School Business Officials encourages a systems-based approach to school security that considers how detection, delay, and response measures work together. This perspective is particularly relevant as districts evaluate the effectiveness of their existing safety technology investments.
At CITE 2026, discussions about districtwide technology strategy and interoperability offer an opportunity to consider how that same systems-based thinking can strengthen emergency preparedness.
The CENTEGIX Safety Platform is designed to connect critical components of a school's safety infrastructure through one coordinated platform. Its integrations work with existing technology investments to help automate notifications, provide precise incident location information, improve situational awareness, and reduce manual handoffs. The goal isn't simply to add another technology to a district's infrastructure. It's to help existing technologies work together so that staff and responders receive actionable information as quickly as possible.
CENTEGIX Technology Partners at CITE 2026
One of the exciting opportunities at this year's conference is connecting with technology companies whose solutions complement the CENTEGIX approach to integrated school safety. Several CENTEGIX technology partners are also listed as exhibitors at CITE 2026, creating opportunities for district leaders to explore how different technologies can contribute to a more connected safety ecosystem.
Through its integration with CENTEGIX, OpenEye connects CrisisAlert activations with nearby live video feeds. When an alert is initiated, the integration can provide response teams with visual context from nearby cameras, helping them better understand the situation and coordinate an appropriate response. This capability transforms existing surveillance infrastructure into a more immediate resource for incident response, rather than relying exclusively on video for reviewing events after they occur.
Singlewire Software provides the InformaCast mass notification platform. Its integration with CENTEGIX connects CrisisAlert activations to InformaCast-supported communications, helping schools extend emergency notifications through their existing communication infrastructure. By connecting wearable emergency alerting with broader notification capabilities, districts can support a more coordinated approach to informing staff and initiating emergency procedures.
PowerSchool is also exhibiting at CITE 2026. CENTEGIX's student information system integration capabilities support connected school operations by helping schools use student and guardian information within relevant administrative workflows. These connections are especially relevant as districts evaluate how visitor management, attendance, dismissal, and student information systems can work together to support everyday campus operations.
These integrations demonstrate how a connected safety platform can support multiple stages of an emergency response: identifying an incident, notifying the appropriate people, providing location and situational awareness, and helping responders coordinate their actions.
The capabilities available to an individual district depend on its deployed systems and configured integrations. The broader opportunity is to reduce fragmentation between technologies and make existing investments more effective.
For districts exploring new school safety solutions, the ability to reduce manual handoffs and compress the time between incident identification, notification, and response should be an important consideration.
What Does Connected School Safety Look Like in a Real District?
The value of integrated school safety technology becomes especially clear when examining how districts are putting these capabilities into practice.
Manatee County: Connecting Emergency Alerts, Video, and First Responders
The School District of Manatee County in Florida is demonstrating how connected technology can strengthen emergency response across an entire school community.
With CENTEGIX CrisisAlert, school employees can discreetly request assistance and provide designated responders with precise incident location information. The district is also among the first to use CENTEGIX Alert Activated Video, connecting emergency alerts with nearby live camera feeds.
This integration gives school safety teams and law enforcement additional situational awareness to assess incidents and coordinate a response. Rather than requiring responders to independently locate relevant camera footage after receiving an alert, the connected systems can make visual context available as part of the response process.
The district's Chief Technology Officer, Scott Hansen, has emphasized the value of providing live video, maps, and incident context directly to dispatchers and first responders. Manatee County's collaboration with the Sheriff's Office further demonstrates the importance of connecting school technology investments with the agencies responsible for responding to emergencies. The district's connected school safety approach offers a practical example of how integration can help transform existing technology into a more coordinated response resource.
For CITE attendees evaluating new safety solutions, Manatee County illustrates an important principle: The value of a technology investment extends beyond its individual features to how effectively it works with other systems and supports the people responsible for taking action.
How Can School Districts Protect Every Staff Member, Everywhere?
Technology discussions at CITE also provide an opportunity to consider an often-overlooked aspect of school safety: protecting the employees who maintain the infrastructure and operations that keep schools running.
Technology specialists, custodians, maintenance teams, and other employees frequently work alone in classrooms, equipment rooms, athletic facilities, and other areas where immediate assistance may not be readily available.
These employees face many of the same emergencies as teachers and administrators, but their work environments can introduce additional challenges. Limited cellular coverage, isolated locations, and the inability to access a phone during a medical emergency can make requesting assistance particularly difficult.
Burkburnett ISD: A Technology Professional's Emergency Demonstrates the Importance of Wearable Safety
On August 16, 2024, Justin Quick, a technology facilitator at Burkburnett Independent School District in Texas, was working alone in an older gymnasium installing network cabling. The building's air conditioning was not functioning, and temperatures inside had become dangerously high.
As Quick worked to finish the installation, he became dizzy and collapsed from heat-related illness. He began losing control of his hands and fingers, making it extremely difficult to operate his phone. The building also had limited cellular service. Fortunately, Quick was wearing his CENTEGIX CrisisAlert badge.
Despite his impaired motor skills, he was able to activate the wearable panic button and request assistance. The district superintendent located him inside the gym, and emergency personnel subsequently arrived to provide medical care.
Quick recovered from the incident, but his experience highlights a critical safety consideration for district technology leaders: Emergency response systems must be accessible to employees wherever they work, including locations where phones and traditional communication methods may be ineffective.
His experience is documented in the Burkburnett ISD impact story. The incident also demonstrates why wearable safety technology for school staff can play an important role in protecting employees during everyday emergencies, not just campus-wide security threats.
As CITE attendees explore ways to strengthen IT operations and organizational resilience, stories like Quick's remind us that the people supporting school technology need reliable protection themselves.
How Can District Leaders Maximize Their School Safety Investments?
For school district technology leaders, implementing effective safety solutions also requires balancing performance, reliability, operational complexity, and cost.
New technologies must often fit within existing infrastructure, accommodate districtwide deployment requirements, and support long-term maintenance and training. At the same time, districts must navigate school safety funding opportunities, budget limitations, and evolving safety expectations.
A connected technology strategy can help districts approach these challenges more effectively. Instead of purchasing entirely separate systems for every safety function, leaders can evaluate how new capabilities integrate with their current infrastructure and contribute to a comprehensive school safety plan.
This approach is especially important when considering the hidden costs associated with safety technology, including implementation, training, maintenance, and the operational burden of managing multiple disconnected platforms.
Successful adoption matters just as much as technical capability. Even sophisticated safety solutions depend on staff understanding how and when to use them. Districts should therefore consider how easily a system can be implemented across campuses and how effectively the organization can build consistent staff adoption.
These considerations align with the broader technology leadership conversations at CITE 2026. The most valuable investments are those that strengthen district operations, support the people who depend on them, and help schools respond effectively when emergencies occur.
Meet CENTEGIX at CITE 2026 in Anaheim
CITE 2026 promises to bring together the ideas, technologies, and people shaping the future of K-12 education. From emerging innovations and cybersecurity to connected infrastructure and emergency preparedness, we're looking forward to conversations that help districts make technology work better for their communities.
At CENTEGIX, we believe school safety is strongest when people, processes, and technology work together. Our connected safety solutions help districts reduce fragmentation, extend the value of existing technology investments, and provide the clarity needed to respond when seconds matter.
Attending CITE 2026? Visit CENTEGIX at Booth 223. We look forward to connecting with education technology leaders, sharing real-world school safety experiences, and exploring how connected technology can help protect every person, in every location, every day.
Meet CENTEGIX at CITE 2026 — Booth 223
EVERY. SECOND. MATTERS.®