San Diego’s Grossmont School District is reference site for Sony’s new IP-Based security system
Real-time digital video surveillance over TCP/IP networks
For most schools, reports of campus
shootings from across the country
seem a distant nightmare. Sadly,
that nightmare became a recurring
reality at Grossmont Union School District,
an 11 high school system with 24,000
students in San Diego County. In 2001,
two separate shooting incidents happened
back-to-back over a two-week period.
That started Grossmont’s search for an
economical way to protect their campuses.
The district turned to Sony, a leader in
audio-visual and security technologies.
This summer, Grossmont was the initial
reference site for the new Sony e-Surveillance
system, which allows administrators and law
enforcement officers to act on emergency
situations in real-time with digital video
surveillance over TCP/IP networks.
Sony’s solution consists of fixed and
pan/tilt/zoom IP addressable cameras with
built-in web servers and Ethernet ports,
Sony Real Shot camera recording and
video management software, and network
attached servers for storage and archival
retrieval. The application software runs
on a Cisco infrastructure. Warren Williams,
assistant superintendent for information
and technology services for Grossmont,
instantly liked what he saw.
Insurance reductions
Just a few months into the system’s
operation, Williams saw far greater applications
and opportunities than originally imagined.
Besides fostering a safe learning environment
for the district’s students, he said that the
Grossmont school district now reports
that vandalism and inappropriate use of
school facilities and resources has dropped
significantly. Williams also said that cost savings from maintaining the physical plant along with
insurance reductions have been some of the
unexpected returns from the initial investment.
Williams said: ”The local police had to go
in SWAT fashion from hall to hall. They didn’t
know where the shooter was, how many there
were. In a lockdown situation, it’s very valuable
to have that kind of information.” After which,
Williams added: "Events had to be reconstructed
from memory only. It would have been helpful
to have evidence of what had happened to
design preventive measures.”
A complete security network from Sony
”We can program the system to respond
to alarm events numerous ways. It can send
e-mail or call a cell phone,” Williams said. ”It
would be impossible for anyone to monitor
all the information coming through the
cameras. But the system looks for what’s
important. Say the assistant principal is on
call at home. If there’s an alarm, they just
dial in on a laptop to see what’s going on.”
Initially, plans for the pilot campus system
for Grossmont consisted of four Sony SNC-RZ30N
Pan-Tilt-Zoom network cameras
connected to a Sony Network Attached
Storage server running Sony’s RealShot
camera manager application software over
the Cisco Systems network. The system’s 720
GB storage capacity holds approximately
30 days worth of archived images. But as
soon as William’s team began to appreciate
the new possibilities the system afforded,
additional cameras were added.
Half a million dollars saved annually...
”The system is essentially maintenancefree
and training staff to use it is simple,”
Williams remarked. ”The price of a single
policeman or campus supervisor pays
for the whole installation on a campus.
The big difference is that those salaries
are a recurring cost. Here, after the first
year, you’re saving money. At $55,000 per
campus multiplied by our 11 campuses,
we could see savings of better than half a million
dollars annually.”
The arrival of the Sony e-Surveillance
system at the Grossmont School District
closes one chapter in the institution’s history
while opening a new one. Before, security
was assumed. Discovering the reality that
such assumptions are unfounded came with
a high price. Now, the demonstrable value
of e-Surveillance has restored confidence
and will continue to provide the sense of
security essential to maintaining a healthy
learning environment.
United Kingdom
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