Vertical Markets

School district monitoring

by Mark Rowe

It was a sunny morning when Mick Miller got up to get ready for work at a large school. He had a great weekend and he was looking forward to the day. Work at the school was fun. However, shortly after, his good mood was ruined: When he reached the school grounds, he saw with dismay that large areas of the facade of the building and the entrance area were once again covered with graffiti. The school gate was broken and that weekend someone had obviously had a barbeque party in the school yard, judging by the garbage. This meant yet again work on repairs.

This example is just one of many cases of vandalism at schools. But vandalism and destruction of property are not the only concerns at schools: Sadly, theft, assaults and campus shootings are important issues as well. According to an FBI study, the number of shootings in the US increased from an average of 6.4 incidents per year in the period 2000 to 2006 to 16.4 per year between 2007 and 2013.

These factors prompted the leaders of the schools in the Sarasota County School District on the Gulf Coast of Florida to take precautions. Sarasota County Schools operate a total of 52 schools, educate 42,000 students and employ 5,000 teachers and other employees. Partner United Security Alliance, certified by the German CCTV product company Geutebruck, was commissioned to secure four high schools and two middle schools at various locations. The technical design and equipment for all middle schools and high schools is already in the planning phase and will be completed within the next two years.

With United Security Alliance, a partner was chosen with years of experience and technical knowledge. This made it possible to provide a solution that is not only fully mature from a technical perspective but that also provides benefits. All schools are interconnected and are controlled by a central control center, the Safety and Security Communications Center. The monitors with views from multiple cameras at all the schools are up and running there in real time: 24 hours. This ensures preventive monitoring as well as assessment, response and, in the best case, the clarification of incidents and crimes. At the same time, school administrators and School Resource Officers on site can check recordings locally and follow up on incidents.

To provide these services, multiple re_porter, GeViScope and GeViStore video management systems were put into use with the analogue and IP cameras. At each school and in the central control centre, SpeedView stations are used as analysis units, from which the security staff can access all live streams and recorded images. All images are archived for 45 days, placing high demands on storage capacity. The schools were initially equipped with 16 cameras 11 years ago. Today, there are 4300 cameras. And more to come.

Tim Butler is a security system engineer who has worked in the security industry for many years. Specialising in cameras and access control, he has been employed at the Sarasota County Schools for the past 13 years. When asked why he chose Geutebruck, he answered: “Storage was the largest challenge. State requirements mandate 30 days of storage but the school district’s goal is to keep at least 35 days’ worth. In the previous system estimating storage needs accurately was difficult and Geutebruck was able to provide what we needed. There were several systems that were considered at the enterprise level and Geutebruck fit all the characteristics that we were looking for. In addition, the transition from analog to the world of IP was made easier by using Geutebruck. All employees are trained internally and the staff can easily handle the equipment in the schools.”

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