MOULTRIE, Ga. — The Colquitt County Board of Education voted Monday night to purchase a crisis alert system for $420,000.

The state will reimburse the local school system with a $30,000-per-school grant for school security that was approved during the most recent legislative session, Superintendent Doug Howell told the board prior to the vote.

It does, however, come with ongoing charges to maintain the system totaling $2,500 per school each year. That money will come from either the school system’s general fund or receipts from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, according to Brad Gregory, the school system’s assistant superintendent for finance.

CrisisAlert by Centegix, an Atlanta-based company, includes a badge that will be issued to all school personnel — not only teachers and administrators, but also custodians, lunchroom staff and everyone else. The badge includes an alert button and a Bluetooth transmitter.

When the button is pressed, it alerts school officials through an app on both their phones and their desktop computers, according to company spokesman Brent Coleman. That allows them to respond to the crisis.

If the button is pushed multiple times, it signals a school lockdown. Strobe lights will flash throughout the school to let everyone know.

The alert includes exact information on the location of the person calling for the alert, so officials know exactly where to respond or who to call on the radio to get further information.

The state grant was a response to a series of school shootings across the country, most notably at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 34 people were shot and 17 of them died. Coleman said Colquitt County is unlikely to see a horrific incident like that, but he said the advantage of the alert system over other things the school system could purchase with the grant is that CrisisAlert can help with less-serious emergencies too: for example, medical emergencies, a fight or a student threatening a teacher.

The CrisisAlert system can be installed within 90 days of receiving the order, Coleman said. Since it’s already almost September, he suggested timing it to go live when students come back from the Christmas holidays.

The system will cover 14 campuses. That’s all the schools in the system, with GEAR and the Alternative School covered by a node at the board offices. All three of those facilities are on the campus of the former Colquitt County High School on Veterans Parkway.

Coastal Plains Charter High School operates after school hours in the CCHS building on Darbyshire Road. Coastal Plains staff will have badges to access the system, a school system spokeswoman said.

Coleman told the board he recommended issuing badges to bus drivers, but they would only be effective while on or perhaps very near a school campus. They’d need to use other communications tools, such as radios, if an emergency happened while running their routes.