For the past six months, the schools in the Port Washington school district in New York have been at the center of an experiment that could dramatically increase the security level inside classrooms, while continuing to let teachers stay in control.

For now, there are single cameras in each of the schools throughout the district, with A+ Technology Solutions, Inc. of Bay Shore, N.Y., hoping they get to augment that installation by putting cameras in some or all classrooms by next fall.

“Just to do what we did, we needed to get approval from the superintendent and the teachers’ union,” says director of marketing Steve Cina. Because A+ had served as the district’s security company, they brought the idea of an on-call emergency “eye in the sky” to school officials and were happy they decided to give it a shot on a trial basis.

If the cameras are brought into the classrooms, teachers will have the ability to press a “panic button” to open the eyelid. Otherwise, the eyelids will remain closed and the cameras can zoom in on lesson plans for students or combine with audio for learning.

The installation began in December 2010 and the Panasonic cameras were available for use when teachers returned to school in the fall. Similar security systems are in place in the autism program at the Association for the Help of Retarded Children building in Old Brookville, N.Y. Marshfield, Mass. uses Axis cameras for a similar purpose in the town hall, library, recreation center and airport, and Bosch cameras line the streets of Brookline, Mass.

The IT cameras, each placed in a SituCon housing, can support a variety of streams and are supported by multiple platforms.

“It’s really taken security to a whole new level,” says Cina. “It started off as a security initiative and made sense to go beyond that and look at it from another perspective.”

Security Paradox

While teachers will likely always remain skeptical of allowing security cameras into their domain, A+ began offering this service because they believe the presence of the cameras will do much more good than potentially invade privacy.

“A lot of people believe there are so many issues in the classroom because there are no cameras in the areas of instruction,” says Jeff Sweeney, business development executive for A+. “In the past, there’s been no ability to secure that part of the school. When there’s no emergency, the teacher can keep the eyelid closed, but if this camera opens up, it becomes the forefront of their attention.”

The biggest challenge, Sweeney says, was finding a camera that integrated with the district’s existing video management system. It was also important to understand whether the implementation was feasible and that required real-life experience, he says.

A+ installed the cameras in public locations in each school and updated the recording software to accommodate the new equipment. Starting in 2012, A+ hopes to begin a phased installation of cameras in the classrooms.

“You don’t want to create a defensive attitude,” says Sweeney. “A lot of times, a teacher doesn’t want to hear anything beyond you saying you want to put a camera in the classroom. That’s something we had to deal with and so far, it’s gone well.”

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D. Craig MacCormack

Craig MacCormack is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years experience covering local and national news and sports as well as architecture and engineering. He joined Commercial Integrator in January 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @CraigMacCormack.

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