Penncrest High School is a four-year school in Media, Pennsylvania. It is accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and is recognised for excellence in education by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Currently, 1350 students are enrolled in grades nine through twelve. Penncrest's curriculum includes 150 courses, emphasising proficiency in basic skills along with an extensive elective program.
Business objective:
In the aftermath of the Columbine tragedy, Penncrest High School escalated its efforts to improve the safety of students and staff on its campus. After raising the necessary funds, district administrators sought assistance from Anixter International to determine an appropriate security solution. Anixter invited district IT personnel to a training facility at Bosch to demonstrate that a video surveillance system would be the best fit for the environment at Penncrest High School.
Solution:
Anixter International enlisted the help of Security Services & Technology to mount nearly 50 cameras and program the video recording technology.
Now, the surveillance system helps schools administrators monitor the hallways, cafeteria, bus terminal, football stadium, gymnasiums, parking lots and athletic fields. Video is recorded with the school's DiBos Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
Administrators often review video recordings to investigate allegations of physical confrontations or thefts in the school, instead of spending several hours interviewing students and staff to determine what may have happened during an incident. With the DiBos DVR, administrators can use a Web browser to view video streams from several cameras at one time, expand the view of one camera to an entire screen, and zoom in during live video to evaluate potential security concerns.
"When an incident does occur, the recorded video helps us determine the course of events faster and more accurately" |
The faculty has embraced the video surveillance system as an extra layer of security.
The system helps students feel safer in the school, and they appreciate when administrators are able to recover stolen items for them by reviewing video from the time of the theft. Surveillance also helps protect the school against false allegations, such as those made recently by a visiting football team. Administrators viewed video of the day and determined no one had entered the gymnasium at the time of an alleged theft.
Result:
"When an incident does occur, the recorded video helps us determine the course of events faster and more accurately," said Ralph Harrison, assistant principal of Penncrest High School. "This helps us keep students in the classroom and minimise the amount of academic time they miss."
Administrators can share video with parents in situations where disciplinary action is needed and provide video in digital form to law enforcement as evidence for court proceedings.
"Students think twice before making poor choices now that their actions could be caught on video," continued Harrison.