LONG BRANCH, N.J.—When the Long Branch Public Schools decided to upgrade its video surveillance system, they didn’t want to simply see what was happening, they wanted to see exactly who was doing what. “We wanted to be able to see everyone in our football stadium,” said Joseph Ferraina, superintendent at Long Branch Public Schools. “We kept hearing problems with this and problems with that and the solution we were looking for we wanted to look into the crowd and pick people out and identify them.”

The school invested in a high-definition surveillance system, installing between five and 16 megapixel video cameras at each of its five schools. In addition, it installed 10 HD network video recorders, allowing it to store up to two months worth of video.

While this type of high-quality surveillance may not be typical for secondary school districts, it’s becoming more and more common said Dave Tynan, vice president of global sales and marketing at Avigilon, which provided the video solution. “When HD first came to TV with instant replay providing exact details to settle disputes, allowing them to zoom in on someone’s shoestring over the line – the same thing is occurring in the surveillance world where organizations like schools have moved to video surveillance as a validation tool,” he said. “Now the principal has indisputable replay of events and activities and they don’t have to spend two weeks and 20 interviews talking to students and investigating.”

The video surveillance system has brought security to a new level, he said. “Right now we’re at the best level of school safety than ever before,” said Ferraina. “At this point in time I can access buildings from anywhere and can look in every classroom and hallway and parking lot.”

Installing cameras in hallways and entrances was important, but it was also critical to have them inside the classrooms. “It’s a fantastic use of cameras when we have a parent who makes allegation that a teacher pushed a student and we can tell when and where and look at the camera,” he said. “By having cameras in classrooms we are better able to protect staff at a higher level.”

But teachers were not immediately receptive to having cameras watching them. “They thought we would be evaluating and observing them through the cameras, but we set their minds at ease that we’re not evaluating, it’s there to protect.”

While the surveillance system was primarily installed to protect students and deter crime, Ferraina said it has had other monetary benefits. “During the recent snow storms we had to send out work to a company and realized that they billed for more trucks than they had on site,” he said. “We were able to save money and use it for monitoring someone on location; we can see if they spent two-and-one-half hours on site and if they were there or not.”

Ferraina attributes being able to put in such a powerful system to the hard work of his IT department. “My IT people were on fire about it and they knew where we wanted to go with it and they carried the ball and put the plan in place,” he said.

And while the system is largely in place as a deterrent factor to protect students and staff, it is critical the school be protected via video surveillance. “With all the different threats of today, we don’t want to have the experience of having to put cameras in after an incident,” he said.