May 1, 2007
12:00 PM, By Ashley Roe
Interoperability
is a term used often by security and education personnel across
Harford County Public Schools (HCPS) in Maryland. With 32 elementary,
eight middle and nine high schools, the school system is one of
the largest in its area, falling under the jurisdiction of three
city police departments and two county law enforcement agencies
as well as the Maryland state police. The nearly 40,000-student
school district has logged a 33 percent growth in its population
in the past 15 years, up from 10,000. As new educational facilities
sprouted within the district to accommodate growth, school officials
eventually needed to reorganize the system's security plan.
Due to the district's
geographic size, school security personnel needed to coordinate
their security efforts with the nearby Aberdeen, Bel Air and Havre
de Grace city police departments. In addition, the Harford County
Sheriff's Office, Maryland state police, staff from several emergency
operations centers and emergency responders needed to be factored
into the school's security procedures in order to ensure effective
incident response. School officials were looking to install a
single surveillance solution throughout each of the 51 schools
and administrative buildings to form a district-wide surveillance
system. “We wanted real-time video surveillance inside our
schools, and we wanted a solution that gave law enforcement and
emergency personnel access to the cameras from wherever they are,”
says Bob Benedetto, HCPS chief of security. The school district
chose a solution from the Houston-based networked video surveillance
provider LenSec.
In May 2005, the district
implemented its first phase of the new security plan, installing
160 fixed and pan/tilt/zoom IP cameras in five high schools and
retrofitting 32 existing analog cameras at a separate high school.
School resource officers along with LenSec representatives surveyed
the schools, pinpointing the problematic areas where cameras would
most likely be placed. “For example, prior to the system's
installation, we were having a big problem with locker theft.
So we decided to place cameras in our locker areas.” School
officials chose to begin implementing their security plan in high
schools because those were the areas that may be most vulnerable
to incidents. “Historically, all the major incidents that
have happened have occurred in a high school environment,”
Benedetto says.
With the cameras in
place, school security resource officers, area law enforcement
agents and emergency responders are able to access and monitor
the cameras remotely in real-time by entering a supplier-provided
virtual private network (VPN) password from a single logon Web
page. Once logged in, the system interface displays a map and
floor plan of the specific facility and identifies locations and
directions of all cameras with red triangular icons. Users can
access real-time images from each camera by rolling a mouse over
the icons. The technology enables outside law enforcement to monitor
events happening inside the school. Should an incident occur,
they can collaborate on response efforts with the school using
LenSec's single platform.
The surveillance system
also allows school officials to go back and review video images.
For example, if a fight occurs during school hours, administrators
can logon to the system and review exactly what happened. Benedetto
says this ability greatly reduced student appeals on suspensions
because administrators had more evidence to base their decisions
on than word-of-mouth. “In light of that, the system is
another tool for administrators to use when carrying out discipline,”
he says.
Benedetto says that
the installation of the first plan phase was carried out in a
matter of weeks. “Another reason we chose LenSec was because
we were looking for a company familiar with the education sector
that would install the system themselves and work around daily
school operations without interfering,” he says. LenSec
has installed more than 20,000 cameras at over 1,200 educational
facilities across the nation. It currently services more than
584 sites in 123 of the nation's largest districts.
To date, HCPS
has installed more than 400 IP cameras in 15 schools. “Now,
we are moving onto our secondary and elementary schools,”
Benedetto explains.
