Crook County High School has made improvements to its security system that goes beyond replacing old cameras. The school is now outfitted with high resolution cameras and motion, sound and air quality sensors. The system can alert school staff of incidents directly to their cell phones.
“I have a son who’s a kindergarten in the district, and every time I see a national event, I always think back to ‘what little thing can I do in the tech department?’” Director of Technology for Crook County School District Eric Ryan said. “We’d want to be able to be a support to responding officers. Under this system I can be in real time supporting them if something happened.”
School Resource Officer with Prineville Police Department Jeffrey Coffman says the school’s old system was “one dimensional,” with older cameras that were grainy and unable to capture a very clear picture.
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“If we’re looking to find a person, we can track them through a building with ease now. Whereas opposed to the old system, you had to jump around looking at different video feeds to try to find where the person went. This is now a seamless transition,” Coffman said.
The school says the motion and sound sensors are meant to detect movement and noises that are consistent with physical altercations. The air quality sensors can detect vapor from vape pens. The sensors can also alert staff if they’re being tampered with.
The sensors are mostly placed in bathrooms, where cameras aren’t present. Cameras installed outside of the bathrooms are used to see which students were around the area during the incident.
The system is now in place at Crook County High School and Pioneer Alternative High School. The district is looking to outfit all schools in the district with the technology.
The district says it cost $182,000 total to update the system.
