Page 22 - Campus Security & Life Safety, November/December 2020

"Through generous donations and grants, Newtown installed a combination of different surveillance systems to bring visibility of all school campuses to the forefront of security officers and faculty."
By Christine Dzou
Three Lessons about School Security
Summit uncovers campus security from team at Newtown Public School District of Sandy Hook Elementary School
Lessons Learned
While student safety is often revered as a top priority, it is not uncommon for incident response protocols to be over- looked until a situation that warrants action occurs. Regardless of how unlikely it may seem to have a severe scenario unfold on campus, schools should not bet on that off chance before investing in security measures that protect students and faculty.
With the tragedy that occurred in Sandy Hook Elementary School—and the immedi- ate response to that incident with the com- plete buildout of video security across seven of the schools in the Newtown Public School District, including Sandy Hook—here are three lessons shared by Mark Pompano, direc- tor of security; and Carmella Amodeo, direc- tor of technology of Newtown, about safety preparedness and its importance on campus.
Invest In the Right Technology
Following the events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, the Newtown School District had to move quickly to find a solution to fill their need for on premise video security. Through generous donations and grants, Newtown installed a combina- tion of different surveillance systems to bring visibility of all school campuses to the fore- front of security officers and faculty.
However, over time, the donated systems quickly showed signs of ineffectiveness and unreliability.
“Whenever a camera went down or foot- age was lost, it felt like a huge deal,” Pompa- no said. “Principals, campus security officers and faculty were dependent on video secu- rity systems to monitor school perimeters and ensure security on campus. Any gaps in visibility felt like we might be at risk of com- promising student safety.”
While the donated systems provided a baseline layer of security immediately after the incident, it failed to meet the growing needs of IT and security staff at Newtown Public School District.
“We considered replacing the existing sys- tem with newer versions of the equipment
and technology but were surprised to see how expensive the upgrade would be,” Amodeo said. “Not only did we have to replace the cameras that were failing regularly, we had to consider the costs of replacing the entire sys- tem, which included servers and video recorders. Those costs quickly added up and exceeded the portion of our school budget dedicated to campus security.”
After a series of vendor comparisons, Pom- pano and Amodeo chose Verkada. “Not only is the video security solution easy enough for non-technical users to manage, it also delivers new features and security updates automati- cally at no additional cost,” Pompano said. “Because the system gets better over time, it gives us the peace of mind that we’re always putting our best foot forward when it comes to protecting our students and faculty.”
With ambitious plans to upgrade video security across the district before the start of the new school year, a simple approach to installation was a huge benefit. With just a PoE connection, the cameras are brought online in moments and accessible on a cen- tralized management platform.
Before the first bell of 2019, 490 cameras were deployed across all eight schools in the Newtown Public School District.
Final Takeaway
Video security technology is imperative to maintaining situational awareness across schools. It’s not something that is “good enough” if it works 75 percent of the time—it needs to reliably perform as expected. Do your research and thoughtfully evaluate your options.
Make School Safety a Shared Responsibility
With video security transitioning more from closed-circuit television systems to cloud- based solutions, ownership has experienced a similar transition from physical security teams to IT teams. Although the responsibil- ity of school safety may vary across districts depending on the solution used, maintaining safety should be a shared responsibility amongst teachers, faculty and campus safety officers.
“We’re able to share camera access with authorized users at no additional cost. It is incredible that our team now has this power- ful resource to see, share and respond to events in real-time. If an incident occurs and we need to share live footage quickly with local authorities, we’re also able to share view only access to cameras so they can quickly assess the situation,” Pompano said.
The benefits of an “all hands on deck”
Kate Way/Shutterstock.com
22 campuslifesecurity.com | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020