School safety goes beyond video surveillance cameras

If someone told you five years ago that in 2022, students would be itching to go back to school, you wouldn’t believe them. But perhaps none of us are as excited to take a break from Zoom as our children. To many parents’ rejoice, each day, more and more students are returning to classrooms for in-person instruction. 

With this return, staff and administrators are keeping safety concerns top of mind—but in more ways than simply preventing COVID outbreaks.

Physical security remains the priority for keeping schools safe. Even though more than 80% of public schools employ security cameras on their campuses, more than half of students feel their schools are underprepared to deal with emergent incidents. 

It is not enough to just have security camera systems. If they are not being maintained or alerting security immediately, they can often only be used to identify perpetrators of past incidents. When an intruder enters a hallway or walks on campus, real-time alerts are some of the best ways to neutralize a threat.

Sensors can also detect various types of sounds and coordinate responses with predetermined rule sets. They can identify between unique noises such as yelling (think: bullying or an escalating fight), glass breaking, gunshots, and calls for help. Not only does this make schools safer, but it can help scale administrator response to incidents appropriately so that resources are not over-devoted to minor events. 

Mitigating harm in the academic environment is always the top priority. And it includes everything from smoking to intruders and more, so cameras or sensors on their own are not enough. That’s why Ava has integrated the two, combining both in the Ava Aware Cloud® platform. Now, alerts and rulesets span across smart security cameras—that can create heat maps, recognize individuals, and leverage machine learning—as well as sensors that can bridge the gaps. 

Take the following scenario for example a student leaves to use the restroom during his calculus class. He goes into a stall and uses his e-cigarette, thinking no one can track him. Of course, there are no cameras inside the restrooms (privacy is and will always be vital), but there might be sensors. Immediately, these sensors can detect the volatile organic compounds in his exhalations, and notify the security team that e-cigarette vapor has been detected in the E hall restrooms. Security might not have time to intersect the student on his way back to class, but with their integrated Ava cameras, they can easily search the event of the student entering.  The administrators can be alerted in real-time, and depending on school policy, determine the appropriate course of action.

But the use cases don’t end with smoke or vapor detection.