"There was overwhelming support by the community in funding this project through a recent bond issue," said Superintendent Dr. John Folks. "Now we are in the process of asking the voters to consider another security deployment in Bond 2007 that will outfit the District's 16 middle schools," he adds.
With over 80,000 students NISD is the 5th largest school district in Texas, is one of the 50 largest in the nation, and expects to grow to over 100,000 students by 2012. Continuing to ensure the safety and security of a district its size required NISD to develop a plan that focused on physical security while also embracing advancements in technology.
"I don't believe that any school in America is 100% safe and parents should not become less vigilant about protecting their children even with systems like this," says Lt. Brad Mills of the Northside ISD Police Department. "But when you have a thousand or more cameras in the schools, it really adds another dimension of security. Students and parents and others know that there are always eyes watching them."
NISD required a modular system comprised of network video surveillance, access control, alarm monitoring, and badging identification. The primary goals of the ISMS were: identical functionality and features at all locations; transparent feature activation at and between locations; centralized and on-site management and use of the system at all locations; capable of providing basic service under system outage conditions; optimizing the use of the NISD leased wide area network; and integration with existing security installations.
Working closely with personnel from NISD's Police, Technology Services, and Construction & Engineering departments LenSec designed a solution to meet the objectives of the district. Utilizing its software platform that was developed specifically for school districts, LenSec designed the program to meet the wide range of functionality required.
Principal Stephen Daniel attributes the double digit decrease in his school's disciplinary incidents to the camera video security system. "Students plainly know that we are watching. They know that if they make some bad choices like getting into fights, distributing or using drugs, or otherwise disrupting the learning environment, it is hard to dispute what the camera sees. This is not a 'gotcha' system. It is a system that helps avert incidents because of its prominence," he says.
