Santa rita union school district (srusd) is made up of six schools serving approximately 3,500 students: john gutierrez & gavilan view middle schools, santa rita, LA joya, new republic, and mckinnon…

Santa rita union school district (srusd) is made up of six schools serving approximately 3,500 students: john gutierrez & gavilan view middle schools, santa rita, LA joya, new republic, and mckinnon elementary schools. In total, we serve a combined diverse student population of 3,470 students. Srusd has a high latinx community with 90% of hispanic students, 5% of white students, 3% of asian students, 1% of black students, and 1% of students are two or more races. Srusd, is a rural school district in salinas, california, incorporating approximately 92 square miles of land, including DEL REY oaks, parts of salinas, and portions of the unincorporated areas of monterey county. The overarching goal of srusds safety and technology project is to first, ensure our students feel safe in a positive, non-punitive environment and secondly for US to address security issues with the congruent need to proactively decrease safety risks on our campuses. To that end, we have determined our schools are highly vulnerable to perimeter breaches that must be addressed immediately by updating our security surveillance systems. In september 2022, M.C. Kimball and associates, INC. Assessed all six schools for school site and risk vulnerability. The assessments determined the schools were highly vulnerable based upon insufficient security camera coverage and access control. Activity around school perimeters is not sufficiently monitored by a security camera system. The ability to detect and respond to suspicious activity or an attempt to breach the perimeter may be delayed. Limited security camera coverage may also hinder the ability to conduct a proper post-incident investigation. To this end, we partnered with the salinas police department to procure an updated surveillance system that would meet the needs of our schools. We have chosen motorola qovo avigilon/AVA to provide the surveillance system, which includes: the AVA surveillance camera solution, halo environment sensors, openpath access control/ video intercom reader, and meraki switch/hardware. The system is straightforward to implement and install, train and use and meets all state and federal privacy laws including ferpa and IT complies with federal ndaa section 889. The system will mitigate perimeter issues, allow notification and confirmation of those entering the school, reduce first responder response time, help US to detect suspicious activity and increase prevention analytics. The solution provides proactive monitoring, fast and smart forensics, compatible with the access and sensor systems; video intercom for visual communication with individuals wishing to enter our campuses; the ability to monitor air quality and identify vaping, smoking, etc., which gives US the ability to counsel students in making healthy choices. The system is best practice, evidence-based security surveillance system with the ability to provide analytics we need to both mitigate potential safety issues and decrease the response time IT takes for identification of a safety issue, and respond. The surveillance system we chose is affordable, as IT integrates with our current system and utilizes hardware we already have. In addition, we will purchase licensing and support for all the equipment.