Due to recent confusion regarding the NCHSAA AED Placement Project, please read for clarification.

This project was initially presented to the Board of Directors last winter and the Finance Committee and full Board approved usage of future endowment fund interest earnings to help underwrite the project.

We first surveyed member schools to discover which schools did and did not own at least one AED unit on their respective campuses. Based on data received from those surveys, we were able to ascertain that roughly one-third of the member schools did not have 1 unit placed on their campuses. Thus, the priority of the placement project is to help those schools get a unit placed on their campuses.

Once every member school has at least one unit, we will re-address whether to assume a second Placement Project to work with member schools to place a second unit. Point of emphasis: If your school currently has an AED unit on its campus, in some place – main building or gymnasium, etc., you are not eligible for this project.

At this time, due to the cost of purchasing units for the identified schools-in-need, we have broken the project into four priorities. To break out schools-in-need into these four priority levels, we utilized the most recent US Census reports (2003) relative to NC counties and percentage of children aged 0-17 who live in poverty, thus identifying these counties as counties of “limited financial resources”. Starting with the counties deemed most financially limited, we matched up surveyed schools-in-need. Due to volume, we needed some mechanism by which to prioritize. In the future, pending interest earnings and the Board’s approval, we will address moving up the timeline to purchase the units at a faster rate and thus get them into the schools meeting the award criteria (staff trained on AED use and guidelines/action plan protocol completed and submitted).

Again, many thanks for your interest in the program and your patience with us as we work through the process.