Our client
Dickinson Independent School District (ISD) serves portions of the Galveston Bay area in Southeastern Texas. Located 50 miles outside of Houston, the district encircles Dickinson Bay and Dickinson Bayou, and it includes the unincorporated areas of San Leon and Bacliffe. True to the region, the district mascot is a bayou alligator—“Big Al”—and the region’s sports teams are referred to as “Gators.” Dickinson High School is the main high school in the region, enrolling over 2,500 students each year (nearly a fourth of the district’s overall enrollment).
Their challenge
When the school decided to upgrade their campus’s communication and security systems, they came to Salas O’Brien for help. Due to the phasing of the high school renovations, the integrated security solution had to be backwards compatible with existing security systems in other parts of the campus.
Our solution
In coordination with the district’s IT department, Salas O’Brien developed plans and specifications that allowed for integration of the campus’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems, intrusion detection systems, and access control systems. The campus has approximately 200 cameras, so Salas O’Brien designed a virtual matrix that allowed security personnel to quickly access different camera feeds and recordings.
The results
The finished project utilizes an S2 software platform, and both the access control and video surveillance systems are IP based for centralized management. The school can now synchronize CCTV recordings with the swiping of a card at a card reader, and special “trouble alarms” trigger camera activation, making response and accountability safer and more efficient for teachers, students, and security staff.
