K-12 school campuses are security zones in an ever-changing environment. Needs vary greatly depending on the security footprint and district priorities. LENSEC has a great deal of expertise helping school leaders protect their greatest assets – the students. Whether the security scenario is for one school facility or a district-wide enterprise deployment, Perspective VMS® has all the angles covered.
K-12 school campuses continue to leverage IP video surveillance to improve campus security as technology continues to provide new tools for the job. As the awareness and demand for school safety increases, so does the need for a unified security platform. Integrated systems allow for video surveillance, video analytics, and physical security access control or intrusion detection events to be accessed quickly. Integrated systems also alert staff of suspicious activity, facilitating informed decision-making during a crisis.
Schools often serve as community hubs for activities by sharing athletic fields, meeting areas, or auditoriums with the general public. With an enterprise-level security solution, personnel can keep an eye on multiple locations simultaneously.
With Perspective VMS®, security devices can enhance school safety in significant ways. With advanced PVMS features, sharing of information and recorded video is simple and provides real-time situational awareness during or immediately after an incident. LENSEC strives to include PVMS features that will make school security and safety more efficient.
Along with security concerns, agencies need to ensure that the right solution is found through a competitive bid process. LENSEC has addressed these concerns for agencies by listing solutions on several cooperative schedules including GSA, Texas DIR, and TCPN.
LENSEC supports the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) in promoting their safety and security guidelines for K-12 schools. First established in 2014, the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) brings together expertise from the education, public safety, and industry communities to develop and support a coordinated approach to making effective use of proven security practices specific to K-12 environments, and informed decisions on security investments.
PASS safety and security guidelines and other resources are available on their website. We’ve also provided copies here for school administrators and public safety officials.
K-12 Education Solutions - Use Case Scenarios
K-12 Education District-wide Surveillance
K-12 school districts require surveillance and many safety precautions due to many issues, including threats of school violence and active shooter attacks on education campuses. Many school districts are facing aging surveillance solutions, a lack of appropriate camera coverage, and diverse security systems at campuses distributed across wide regional areas. The LENSEC physical security team has extensive experience working with stakeholders at school districts. Our team can provide engineered solutions that security teams can rely on to solve a myriad of problems.
Camera Viewer Presets
Unifying the security footprint across a district can make the job of monitoring multiple campuses and investigating numerous incidents easier. By putting all district video surveillance needs under the umbrella of one enterprise-level video surveillance platform, users of the system are able to better understand the operation of the video management software no matter where they are located. Administrators have the capability of dividing users into groups that make sense for the security organization. If the security team needs to monitor entrances of all schools, for example, they can set up specific user-defined presets that combine school entrances in order to accomplish the surveillance goals.
School Bus Transportation
With Perspective VMS® Fleet Security Management, transportation security can be included under the same unified security footprint as building security. Cameras on-board school buses can connect to on-board servers. When incidents occur, such as the deployment of the school bus stop arm, video is tagged and becomes a searchable event. When the bus returns to the depot, video can be remotely retrieved and off-loaded to central storage. This makes transportation video searchable under the campus-wide video security platform.
To learn more about engineering solutions for K-12 education campuses, please contact us with questions or to schedule a PVMS demo with our team.
K-12 Education Case Studies
Anne Arundel County Public Schools Use Perspective VMS® to Keep Students and Faculty Safe
SCENARIO: District-wide IP Video Surveillance
Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) in Maryland is one of the 50 largest school systems in the United States with over 81,000 students in 126 schools.
THE PROBLEMS: Widespread Coverage Over a Large Region
Having this many students across a sizable school district creates many issues with providing a safe learning environment. A large school district like AACPS is presented with many problems since they have students at campuses spread across a wide regional area. There are many incidents that are investigated at each school. Capturing video evidence can often mean the difference in determining the true facts of each incident.
With each facility, system maintenance and training of users becomes crucial. Care for the components of the security system and the network backbone require ongoing support. Large school districts need vendors they can trust to support their systems and provide needed maintenance on security systems.
SOLUTIONS: Overview
In 2007, AACPS contracted with LENSEC to provide a video surveillance system that could capably cover district properties. Since that time, AACPS has been a loyal customer. LENSEC helped bring the school district onto one security platform. At the time, the district used LENSEC’s legacy video management software, LENSEC VMS. Since then, the district has upgraded LENSEC’s enterprise-level security platform, Perspective VMS®. AACPS began shifting to PVMS in the 2014-2015 school year. The conversion to the new security software was completed in 2017. Perspective VMS® brings many advancements to the district that were not available in LENSEC VMS.
CONCLUSION: PVMS is the Best Solution for 8,000 Cameras
As a large customer, AACPS requires a quick response from LENSEC support staff when help is required. Batten tells us, “Our experience has been great. The support has been remarkable. LENSEC is a phone call away and always helpful in getting what I need.”
With a team in place that knows the needs, LENSEC continues to grow with Anne Arundel County Public Schools. As the district plans to surpass 8,000 cameras in the near future, the school security team can continue to rely on LENSEC and Perspective VMS® for now and into the future.
Safe and Secure at Alabama Christian Academy
SCENARIO: The private Protestant school in Montgomery, Ala. was founded in 1942 by leaders who wanted to provide families of central Alabama a place where students could receive a faith-based education.
THE PROBLEMS: Widespread Coverage Over a Large Region
Having this many students across a sizable school district creates many issues with providing a safe learning environment. A large school district like AACPS is presented with many problems since they have students at campuses spread across a wide regional area. There are many incidents that are investigated at each school. Capturing video evidence can often mean the difference in determining the true facts of each incident.
SOLUTIONS: Overview
Today’s K12 schools need solid security solutions to keep students and faculty safe and allow them to learn without fear for physical safety.
With Perspective VMS®, ACA now has enterprise-level security solution that meets its current security needs and allows for future growth.
K-12 Education Case Studies
Pflugerville Independent School District Overcomes Security Obstacles In An Enterprise Environment Using LENSEC & Perspective VMS®
THE PROBLEM
The need for security camera coverage and an adequate enterprise surveillance solution at campuses in the Pflugerville Independent School District was recently creating big problems. The medium-sized Central Texas school district serves nearly 25,000 students. Pflugerville ISD has more than 30 campuses spread over 95 square miles around Austin, TX.
One of the problems Valdez had to overcome was inadequate camera coverage. Existing cameras were creating problems and needed updating. In addition, the overall number of cameras was lacking.
THE SOLUTION
LENSEC stepped in as an expert partner with the school district providing support to upgrade the network and adding new cameras. This improved camera coverage to all schools. The district added an enterprise-level video management software that could be centrally managed from the technology center. In all, Pflugerville ISD now has over 2000 cameras managed using Perspective VMS®.
THE CONCLUSION
The partnership between LENSEC and Pflugerville ISD is providing success in overcoming problems the school district had previously faced. By addressing the security concerns, the school district staff is better able to provide students with a safe and nurturing school environment.
