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Cameras May Offer More Security To Broward Schools
Date: 7/2/07
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Source: CBS Broadcasting Group
(CBS4) BROWARD A new countrywide network has been created to allow Broward public schools and school buses to be monitored with cameras capable of streaming live images to school district offices and police agencies.
The new initiative would allow for police to see a live crime scene so they know before hand what type of situation they were responding to.
''We would be able to see exactly what the situation is. As the bus is moving around the county, we would be able to have a continuous video presence,'' Director of the district's communications network Phyllis Schiffer-Simon, told our news partner The Miami Herald.
Tuesday, Schiffer-Simon told Broward School Board members about the idea as one way to use a planned network spanning the county. The network, OneBroward, enables the nine agencies involved to tap into the network that enables such varied uses as Internet access to families that can't afford it, to wireless meter reading, she told The Herald.
Wireless cameras could be used on school buses as soon as the next three to six months, according to officials. The live image streams would be coded so that only school district officials and emergency workers could see them.
School officials also want to use webcams at schools, where live streaming video could be tapped by emergency officials and school employees from their desktops or BlackBerries or across the street, Joe Melita, the Broward school district's chief investigator told The Herald. Police en route to a school could also see the situation inside before entering the school.
''If they pull up and there's a disturbance on site, they would be able to pull up into the computer and see exactly where that is,'' Melita said. ``An assistant principal could be in the gym and look at their PDA and watch their parking lot.''
The system will be gradually offered at every school, starting with high schools, and the district would have to pay millions for new cameras capable of streaming video live. Current cameras installed at schools must be monitored from a designated room on campus by someone assigned to the task.
That technology ''was great, 20 years ago. So was the phone I used to carry that was the size of a brick,'' Hollywood police Capt. Tony Rode said.
Hollywood police are using local money and a federal grant to monitor South Broward High with Web cameras, Rode said. The school has 60 cameras and plans to add similar equipment at McArthur and Hollywood Hills high schools.
''The best part is you don't have to go into some computer room to look at it,'' Rode said. ``The word quickly, I mean quickly spreads throughout the school.''
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