Prairie Hill School District Creates Safe, Open Learning Environment with Network Surveillance System

The Prairie Hill School District is a gateway community on the North East state line. The District is part suburb and 100% committed to offering the finest instructional program in the area. It believes that an effective instructional program requires a school environment where student safety is top priority. To ensure the safety of its students, as well as staff, the Prairie Hill School District recently deployed VIVOTEK network surveillance cameras with Exacq video management software.

While student safety is a main concern at the Prairie Hill School District, it is also important to create a friendly and open learning environment. With this in mind, the district was looking for an advanced surveillance system that could deliver clear and accurate image detail with fewer cameras installed as inconspicuously as possible.

With the recommendation from Professional System, Inc., a local provider of technology services, including surveillance system design, installation, and services, Prairie Hill School District decided to deploy the VIVOTEK network cameras because of their superior image quality, resulting in significantly fewer cameras needed and providing overall surveillance success while maintaining a friendly school atmosphere. "After comparing solutions from multiple manufacturers, it quickly became clear that VIVOTEK meets all the requirements," said William A. Burton, President of Professional System, Inc. "With a mixture of indoor and outdoor VIVOTEK cameras, we were able to create a complete surveillance system that not only provides safety to students and staff, but also help the school to catch and record conflicts and interactions between students during school activity, which helped the school administration to control and maintain peaceful activity."

A total of 196 VIVOTEK cameras ranging from 1 to 3 Megapixel resolution were installed throughout 8 campuses by Professional System Inc. in three installation phases to serve different surveillance needs. In phase one, a total of 74 VIVOTEK cameras were installed in interior and exterior areas throughout the main 3-story building for general surveillance, including 41 units of FE8171V, an outdoor vandal-proof fisheye camera with 360° field of view. FE8171Vs were mostly installed in the hallways and library because of their wide angle field of view which significantly reduce the amount of cameras needed for complete coverage. "One of the security concerns was monitoring incidents during break times when there were large amount of students moving between classes. Using a VIVOTEK FE8171V wide angle camera, we were able to capture a panoramic image that normally requires 2-3 IP cameras," said William. "This installation not only resulted in significant savings to the school district, but also provided an open and friendly learning environment due to the discreet form factor of the camera housings."

During the 2nd installation phase, 60 VIVOTEK cameras were installed mostly on the exteriors of the remaining 7 campuses, including multiple units of SD8314E, an outdoor pan tilt camera with 18X optical zoom to monitor parking lots and other outdoor activities. With the 18X optical zoom capability, an administrator can easily zoom into a particular area of interest to record important data, for example, license plate details. After the completion of installing all the outdoor cameras, Professional System plans to kick off the final installation phase in August 2014 to install additional 62 VIVOTEK cameras in the interior areas throughout 7 campuses.

The security team at the Prairie Hill School District seamlessly manages and monitors the recorded high definition video captured by VIVOTEK cameras using Exacq management software in the security office, with the surveillance video also being accessible by selected administrators, including the school Principal. The combination of VIVOTEK's cameras with Exacq management software has proven to be a reliable enterprise surveillance system. "We were impressed with how well VIVOTEK's cameras work with the Exacq software," said William. "With the user-friendly features from Exacq and superior image quality from VIVOTEK cameras, we delivered the most ideal solution for our customer."

With student and staff safety a key priority at the Prairie Hill School District, the new VIVOTEK surveillance system offers the ability to keep everyone safe while maintaining an open educational atmosphere. "The VIVOTEK surveillance cameras help the school to catch and record conflicts and interactions between students during school activity; this is a very important piece to help the school to control and maintain peaceful activity," said Julia Veazey, Director of Technology at the Prairie Hill School District. "We are very happy with the result and look forward to deploying more VIVOTEK cameras later this year to further enhance the level of security across the board."