Herndon, VA -- December 12, 2006 -- How can we prevent school violence before it starts? In the light of recent outbreaks, it's a question on the minds of parents and school officials across the country. So where do we turn? An innovative technology may help. It's called Mobile Guardian Safety Suite and it could prevent violence against children at school.

The technology was created by Jill Stelfox, CEO of Herndon, Va based Defywire, Inc. As a mother, Jill was haunted by the knowledge that she could track a Fed Ex package more easily than she could locate her own children at school during an emergency.

With so much violence permeating our schools, administrators need a way to ferret out troublemakers – fast – before a pattern of skipped classes and hallway disruptions turns into a school shooting or some other violence. But how to give officials the heads up they need when a child is starting down that dangerous path? How to meet violence not just head on – but proactively, shutting down shooters before they start?

The Mobile Guardian Safety Suite can send officials a message when a specific child has reached a certain threshold of "incident reports" – such as two per day, for example. Statistics show that children who begin a pattern of truancies, lateness and class fights are at higher risk for taking misbehavior to the next level.

Mobile Guardian provides handheld wireless software information to teachers, administrators, and school bus drivers about children's whereabouts from the time they get onto the school bus in the morning until they jump off into their parents' waiting arms that afternoon. It also has the capability of monitoring which children are generating incident reports at various locations throughout the school or on school buses. It's these reports that are used to alert administrators to a potential problem.

Mobile Guardian is now used to protect a quarter-million schoolchildren, including those of Fairfax County, Va.; Spackenkill Union Free School District in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Dinwiddie County Public Schools in Dinwiddie, Va.; and McKinley Technology High School in Washington, DC.

Cost of this protection? Only $500 per month per school.

Defywire is fully committed to developing software that can help protect children from violence in the schools. As part of its commitment, Defywire is the underwriter for the public television series 100 Tips for Child Safety, produced by 3 Roads Communications of Frederick, Md.