K-12 Schools —both public and private– are increasingly turning to video surveillance as a means to reduce incidents of bullying, assault, theft, vandalism and, perhaps, to even help prevent more heinous crimes like sexual assault, kidnapping and child abuse.
Examples of Schools Using Video Surveillance
York Prep and Trevor Day School and Trinity are three New York City schools that made major security upgrades in 2013 in response to school shootings, including the installation of more advanced video security systems.
More recently, the Gunter Independent School District in Grayson County, Texas recently began adding video cameras to school buses to provide added security. The use of cameras lets the drivers focus on driving and that aspect of safety, while the cameras help to prevent problems and provide evidence in the event a bad situation arises.
Why Should Private Schools Consider Video Surveillance?
Although private schools typically have fewer incidents of crime compared to the average crime rate of public schools in the aggregate, no school setting is entirely safe.
Video surveillance cameras in private schools can serve a variety of purposes:
- Cameras can provide documentary evidence of who enters and leaves the school premises. Depending on how many cameras are used and where they are placed, school officials can keep track of who enters the publicly-accessible entranceways, restrooms, and locker rooms and whether they leave.
- Cameras placed strategically at locations where physical observation is infrequent, can help to reduce theft and vandalism and eliminate the scope of areas where physical abuse might take place on the premises.
- Video footage can help to reduce unwarranted claims against professional staff employed by the school by providing additional documentary evidence about who might have been in a particular location at a designated time.
- Video surveillance systems, when professionally installed and maintained, might lead to reduced liability insurance premiums and save on personnel costs (from hiring to staffing to less turnover due to improved working conditions).
No security system is failsafe, but video is being successfully used by many school systems to provide an added layer of protection for students, professional staff and campus visitors.
Contact Jason Maddox today to schedule a free walk-thru at your Alabama private school to find out whether video surveillance cameras might serve your organization’s security goals.
