Located in rural Hazelhurst, Georgia, the Jeff Davis County School District operates five schools ranging from pre-K to high school, along with two administration buildings. The high school and middle school, built in 2000 and 2010, respectively, had video surveillance systems installed in an effort to provide security protection. Unfortunately, these systems were deployed using very different equipment from different vendors. The result was two entirely separate video systems consisting of a mixture of hardware.
Located in rural Hazelhurst, Georgia, the Jeff Davis County School District operates five schools ranging from pre-K to high school, along with two administration buildings. The high school and middle school, built in 2000 and 2010, respectively, had video surveillance systems installed in an effort to provide security protection. Unfortunately, these systems were deployed using very different equipment from different vendors. The result was two entirely separate video systems consisting of a mixture of hardware.
“The two systems could not have been more dissimilar in the way they were designed and implemented. These were two completely separate systems, which just wasn’t a good thing,” said Nathan Miller, Network Engineer for the Jeff Davis County Board of Education.
The existing middle school video system used analog cameras and a hybrid solution for recording. Cameras fed footage to an encoder that transmitted the video to a VMS. That project was designed and installed by the architect and contractor when the school was constructed, but it was a less-than-ideal setup.“Things were even worse at the high school, where the combination of analog cameras and outdated 16-channel analog DVRs made the recorded images virtually useless.
The combination of the Samsung cameras with the exacqVision video recording solution gave the district the image quality and ease-of-use they were looking for, and supported the access hierarchy they required.
Given the poor video quality and coverage issues at both schools, it became obvious that both systems needed to be replaced. School administrators decided to work with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) to develop an improved safety strategy, and that work resulted in a plan to implement improved camera systems at every building when resources allowed. This year’s budget process included a proposal for the new systems, and it was strongly approved by voting public, putting the project into motion.
At the end of the evaluation, the district chose Samsung cameras for the surveillance system upgrades. The image quality was ranked the highest of the contenders, and the robust, vandal-resistant construction of Samsung’s cameras as compared to other vendors’ offerings clinched the decision.
For the recording and video management systems, the district chose exacqVision servers and video management system (VMS) software. The combination of the Samsung cameras with the exacqVision video recording solution gave the district the image quality and ease-of-use they were looking for, and supported the access hierarchy they required.
Progressive Communications, based in Macon, Georgia, was contracted to design and install surveillance systems at all five main school locations. To meet the coverage priorities within the budget for the project, Progressive Communications used three Samsung camera models: SNV-6012 cameras for indoor use; SNV-6084R cameras used both indoors and outdoors; and SNO-7082R cameras used outdoors.
Thanks to the high-resolution imaging provided by the Samsung cameras, the district has been able to resolve a much higher percentage of incidents than in the past.
The district is also moving ahead to implement coverage for the next priorities, including the extensive athletic facilities.“We already had network connectivity at the football stadium, so we have coverage of pretty much the whole facility. We plan to add cameras to cover the baseball and softball facility when data connectivity is added later this summer,” Miller said.
Since the system’s deployment, far fewer incidents are falling through the cracks. Thanks to the high-resolution imaging provided by the Samsung cameras, the district has been able to resolve a much higher percentage of incidents than in the past. Additionally, overall student behavior has improved with the known presence of the cameras.
Each school monitors its own cameras locally in accordance with the access hierarchy system design, and video from all sites can be accessed from the Superintendent’s or Director’s office as needed. If an incident needs to be escalated to law enforcement, the district can provide clear, usable footage right away. All these functions are supported by the exacqVision VMS software and network video recorders.