Moon Area School District in Pennsylvania was dealing with system reliability issues with disparate legacy camera systems across the district.
At Pennsylvania’s Moon Area School District, outdated, unreliable camera systems were draining staff time and district resources. Leaders needed a solution that could modernize physical security, increase efficiency, and fit a tight public-school budget.
“Moon Area School District in Pennsylvania was dealing with system reliability issues with disparate legacy camera systems across the district, hours of wasted time by staff searching for video footage, and district resources potentially being used by non-district residents,” said Erick Calderon, Director – Solutions Architect at Rhombus.
To address these challenges, the district turned to Rhombus’ cloud-managed security platform. Rhombus deployed its R510 bullet cameras with License Plate Recognition (LPR), enabling the school to track vehicles entering and exiting campus and verify residency.
“This has saved Moon Area School District over $150,000,” said Calderon. “The district has also been able to reduce the amount of time it takes to resolve incidents from hours to mere minutes.”
AI for fast response and operational efficiency
Rhombus’ AI-powered analytics are central to the solution. “School Resource Officers are able to get real-time alerts and leverage AI analytics like facial recognition and color search to find the contextual information needed to resolve security incidents fast,” Calderon explained.
Moon Area has used LPR not just for situational awareness but to ensure compliance and equity.
“Moon Area School District has been able to leverage license plate recognition to ensure that only district residents are enrolled in district schools,” Calderon said. “This saves the district money and maintains fairness and equity by ensuring that district funds are only being used on district families.”
He added, “Other AI analytics, like facial recognition and color search, allow security and IT teams to quickly find footage and resolve incidents fast.”
For example, if an intruder enters campus, the system’s AI tools help officers search by facial match or clothing color.
“A single pane of glass platform allows for quick investigation, and proactive AI alerts allow security personnel to be immediately notified if an intruder or unknown vehicle enters campus, which helps improve campus safety,” Calderon said.
Privacy and cybersecurity by design
While AI functionality raises concerns around surveillance and data protection, Calderon emphasized that Rhombus is built with privacy in mind.
“Privacy and cybersecurity are at the core of Rhombus,” he said. “With end-to-end encryption, strict access protocols, granular permissions, and secure sharing, Rhombus ensures that data is always secure and private.”
“Additionally, all data within Rhombus belongs to the end user; it cannot be used in any way without permission from the end user first.”
Enabling real-time collaboration
Security incidents often demand coordination across departments and agencies. Rhombus’ cloud platform makes that seamless, even during large-scale events like football games.
“During large incidents or large-scale events, school administrators are able to seamlessly collaborate with police and other security officers,” Calderon said. “A cloud-based platform gives users flexibility and accessibility to access real-time footage, on a computer or mobile device, whenever they need it.”
Video walls set up in district offices allow administrators and security personnel to view all areas in real-time. This provides better visibility across key areas like the middle school and high school, including for large scale events like football games.
Calderon added, “Patrol officers have walkies to communicate with police officers and school resource officers, who are viewing security cameras, to have more eyes where they need them during large events.”
Scaling for the future
As Moon Area School District expands, Rhombus is helping them plan for long-term security needs, including a new 10,000-seat stadium.
“With a fully interoperable platform like Rhombus, Moon Area is able to use native access control and IoT sensors and integrate its most important systems and workflows with the Rhombus Open API,” Calderon said. “This allows the district to be secure and efficient today and in the future.”
Changing the camera refresh equation
School districts have long faced a binary choice when it comes to security upgrades: keep old systems or pay heavily to replace them. Rhombus is now offering a third way.
Relay Lite, the company’s latest release, lets customers cloud-manage existing third-party cameras without needing encoders, gateways, or new hardware—marking what the company calls an “industry-first” for hybrid security.
“Historically, schools are forced to choose between two ideas: continue using traditional security systems that are becoming obsolete, or being intentionally locked into vendors where they have no flexibility,” Calderon said. “Neither of these choices offers schools what’s needed to solve modern security and safety problems.”
“An interoperable platform works with existing hardware and software while also providing modern cloud cameras and hardware like access control and IoT sensors all from a single pane of glass,” he added.
Relay Lite can help districts extend the useful life of their camera infrastructure while upgrading to real-time cloud management—crucial for institutions managing mixed deployments of old and new equipment.
Reflecting a national trend
The Moon Area project also reflects broader changes in K–12 physical security strategy across the U.S., where budget cuts, rising incidents, and community expectations are shaping new approaches.
“With increasingly uncertain times for schools and districts across the U.S. because of budget cuts, strained funding, rising violent and nonviolent incidents, and student vaping, school leaders need the flexibility to improve school safety in a way that best fits their unique circumstances,” said Calderon.
“The Moon Area School District project shows the trend of districts moving towards an interoperable cloud-managed platform and using all tools at their disposal to keep their students and staff safe,” he added.
What it means for integrators
For systems integrators, Rhombus’ direction points to a new model: one where cost-saving retrofits can deliver cloud-level capabilities and long-term platform interoperability.
“If a district has cameras, access control, sensors, or school safety software they want to continue to use, they should be able to integrate them without issue,” said Calderon. “This allows schools to maximize their budget by reducing costs while getting best-in-class cloud physical security.”
A smarter path to school safety
The shift toward hybrid, cloud-managed physical security marks a pivotal moment for school districts and the integrators who support them. As budgets tighten and safety demands escalate, the ability to modernize without fully replacing existing infrastructure offers a compelling path forward. The Moon Area School District’s deployment demonstrates how schools can reduce costs, improve incident response, and achieve broader situational awareness while preserving prior investments in legacy systems.
More importantly, this approach reflects a deeper change in how schools are rethinking refresh cycles. No longer tied to rigid timelines or locked into proprietary ecosystems, administrators can now adopt flexible, interoperable platforms that evolve with their needs. For integrators, this opens new opportunities to deliver value-added services such as AI analytics, real-time alerts, and mobile-first access on top of existing deployments.
As security risks grow more complex, the tools to manage them must become smarter, faster, and more connected. Cloud-managed platforms that support legacy systems and integrate with broader ecosystems are not just a stopgap solution—they are emerging as the new standard. For schools and the integrators who serve them, that means safer campuses, more efficient operations, and a more sustainable approach to security.