Databus Issue: 2004 3 07/30/2004
IP Video Monitoring System:
Warren Williams Assistant Superintendent, Information and TechnoloA Security and Economic Necessity
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For most schools, reports of campus shootings from across the country seem a distant nightmare. Sadly, that nightmare became a recurring reality in our district, the Grossmont Union School District, an 11-high school system with 24,000 students in San Diego County.
In 2001, two separate shooting incidents happened back-to-back over a two-week period. That ended the notion that these troubles only happen elsewhere. It also started our evaluation of the incidents using a broad-based, community-wide investigation of practices that were used and recommendations on how to prevent similar events in the future.
A Blue Ribbon Commission, comprised of community leaders, reported two major findings. First, it commented that the most important thing that can be done to ensure the safety of schools is to make sure that every student is connected to school and to adults in the community. At the core of the findings was the concept that schools will never be completely safe as long as there are troubled students who have no one to confide in and work with on a daily basis. In essence, no student should fall through the cracks of the educational institution. Grossmont has invested extraordinary time and resources to fulfill this recommendation.
The second major recommendation was to prepare the security of our campuses that this might never happen again. Already existing, highly effective plans were reviewed in detail to cover as many scenarios as we could imagine. One critical area included the need to routinely monitor our schools for trouble spots and to have the capacity to provide law enforcement with a campus-wide view in the case of trouble.
In search for an economical way to protect our campuses, we turned to two of our valuable partners, Sony, a leader in audio-visual and security technologies and Cisco, the company that had worked numerous times with us developing solutions for education.
This past summer, Grossmont became the initial reference site for Sony’s monitoring system, which allows administrators and law enforcement officers to act on emergency situations in real-time with digital video surveillance over TCP/IP networks. Grossmont’s solution consists of pan/tilt/zoom IP addressable cameras with built-in Web servers and Ethernet ports, Sony Real Shot™ camera recording and video management software, and network attached servers for storage and archival retrieval. The application software runs on a Cisco infrastructure.
For this pilot project, we outfitted two of the district’s 11 campuses with the e-monitoring system. Now, JPEG data files can be accessed, monitored, recorded and printed anywhere on the network by authorized personnel -- crucial advantages during emergency situations or to help reconstruct events from archived material.
Just a few months into the system’s operation, we have seen far greater applications and opportunities than originally imagined. Besides fostering a safe learning environment for the district’s students, the Grossmont school district can now report that vandalism and inappropriate use of school facilities and resources has dropped. Cost savings from maintaining the physical plant along with insurance reductions have been some of the unexpected returns from the initial investment.
Our schools are now safer and more productive for less money. Sony and Cisco have provided one of the best value-added products we’ve ever developed. Sony conducted joint testing on the solution. As a result, all components of the Sony IP surveillance solution built on Cisco Infrastructure have been pre-tested and pre-integrated, providing a more reliable, scalable infrastructure. Integrating Sony’s monitoring capabilities with Cisco’s network infrastructure allows educational institutions to satisfy their security monitoring needs over a single physical infrastructure. The two companies will continue in our collaboration to build on their current offering and extend its abilities to meet our institutions’ future needs. The Sony IP Surveillance Solution built on Cisco Infrastructure has been developed to meet the specific needs of education customers. The Sony and Cisco solution is practical, easy to implement, and is designed to work with schools’ existing infrastructures.
“This solution allows educational institutions to use the power of the Internet in a new and effective way,” says Steve Baker, vice president for Sony Electronics’ Business Solutions Division. “This solution offers a highly effective and affordable answer to many of the critical challenges in the education market,” adds Steve Steinhilber, vice president for strategic alliances at Cisco. “As Grossmont Union High School District has already demonstrated, the joint efforts of Sony and Cisco are helping schools become safer and reduce vandalism while making the most of existing resources.”
Sony and Cisco have created a solution that allows Sony’s IP Surveillance cameras, its robust surveillance software application and information gathering technology to be integrated with Cisco’s routers, networking infrastructure and software. Each of the cameras and other sensors, provided by Sony, has its own Internet Protocol address, making it as easy to monitor school facilities, as it is to surf a Web site.
One of the biggest assets of the solution is its ability to multiply the effectiveness of security personnel and provide new levels of functionality and flexibility. Adding the intelligence of Cisco networks to security surveillance systems enables a single security officer to monitor many times the locales than is possible with a traditional, analog-based system.
Embedded Web servers in the IP Surveillance cameras allow up to 50 simultaneous feeds using 25x optical zoom lenses and 12x digital zooms. Working through the Internet infrastructure, users can control the cameras or access information from PCs, laptops or even handheld PDAs. All the information generated by the cameras is in fully Internet-compatible formats, which means that still and video images can be monitored, recorded and printed anywhere on the network by authorized personnel. Archiving is also quick and easy. The system’s 720 GB storage capacity holds approximately 30 days worth of archived images.
The system can be tailored to fit specific needs. The solution includes Sony’s SNC-RZ30N or SNC-Z20N network cameras and FSV-M5 network attached storage servers running Sony’s Real Shot camera manager application software over the Cisco Systems network. Cisco components are Cisco Catalyst Series switches, Cisco Aironet Access Points, PCMCIA wireless LAN adapters, PIX 500 Series firewalls, VPNs and CiscoSecure ACS for Windows®.
Before the incidents at Grossmont, security on the campuses was handled by a local police patrol with officers assigned to cover different schools. But, the incidents raised awareness to rethink the need for a security system. We understood that if we had been able to see the problem developing -- people on the campus that shouldn’t be -- perhaps we could have done something. Perhaps we could have gone into an immediate lockdown. Once the crisis was underway, law enforcement officers were on their own. They had to go in SWAT fashion from hall to hall. They didn’t know where the shooter was and how many there were. In a lockdown situation, it’s very valuable to have that kind of information. After which, events had to be reconstructed from memory only. It would have been helpful to have evidence of what had happened to help design preventive measures.
As the search for a security system was underway, the district received a major grant to connect the schools with a Cisco Systems fiber optic IP infrastructure providing extensive bandwidth capacity across the entire system. Was there some way to utilize this resource for a security application? As it happened, the possibility for such an IP-based system existed.
The power of our monitoring solution lies in its ability to deliver visual information wherever and whenever needed in real-time. The system’s true utility begins with the automated ability to communicate alarm events. Motion sensor-equipped cameras, as well as other triggering criteria can signal school officials on call. Then, authorized personnel can take control of the cameras to investigate the situation immediately from any networked computer. Wireless capabilities allow police patrol cars with laptop and/or handheld computers to continue to keep an eye on events while responding to the scene. All the while, the system records images on the secure, RAID redundant server.
We can program the system to respond to alarm events numerous ways. It can send e-mail or call a cell phone. It would be impossible for anyone to monitor all the information coming through the cameras. But, the system looks for what’s important. For example, say the assistant principal is on call at home. If there’s an alarm, they just dial in on a laptop to see what’s going on.
Now, besides security functions, an additional camera can watch or even Web cast sporting events at the school stadium. In time, the system may be used for educational purposes as well. Adding teacher-controlled cameras to classrooms will let top teachers demonstrate best practices to their colleagues. It might be used to broadcast performing arts events to distant parents and relatives. It could also help in confronting students with discipline issues.
Many have reservations about the intrusive nature of the cameras. Hence, many sessions have been established to discuss the nature and use of the monitoring equipment. Unions have been informed along the way to ensure their rights are protected. Board policy and administrative regulations have been approved. There is also an Acceptable Use Policy currently under negotiation for operators of the cameras and software. Current users of the equipment are principals, assistant principals, school resource officers and campus supervisors. The district staff is only engaged to research past events and keep the system operational.
Next, developments in the existing implementation include working closely with local police to deliver video information via wireless both to cruisers with laptops and to foot patrols with handheld computers. Police are confident that the new tools give them what they need to address any future situation.
The system is essentially maintenance-free and training staff to use it is simple. The price of a single policeman or campus supervisor pays for the whole installation on a campus. The big difference is that those salaries are a recurring cost. Here, after the first year, you’re saving money. At $55,000 per campus, multiplied by our 11 campuses, we could see savings of better than $500,000 annually.
Unexpected benefits have also surfaced. The school district is renegotiating with its insurance underwriters to reflect the changes brought by the new security system. We’re a safer place now. That we are less likely to have damages, should be reflected in our premiums. This is another place where we’re cutting overhead. The insurance savings will likely be significant, enough to justify costs. Typically, the introduction of a pilot system is followed by lengthy analysis and evaluation. Here, the system’s success in providing security, plus the many value-adds has immediately won over the district’s governing board. Their concern is to extend the system district-wide. A recently passed bond will provide the necessary funding to accomplish this.
The arrival of the video monitoring system at the Grossmont Union High School District closes one chapter in the institution’s history while opening a new one. Before, security was assumed. Discovering the reality that such assumptions are unfounded came with a terrible price. Now, the demonstrable value of campus-wide video monitoring has restored confidence and will continue to provide the sense of security essential to maintaining a healthy learning environment.
Warren Williams is assistant superintendent, information and technology services for the Grossmont Union High School District. He can be reached at (619) 644-8240 or at wwilliam@guhsd.net.
