Using Umbo to Protect Schools
Customer Story: Seven Arrows Elementary School
“We are a school that is open and inviting and nothing feels less inviting than security cameras … so there had to be some balance between having the place covered without having the look and feel … the inviting-ness compromised.”
— Darren, Dean of Students, Seven Arrows Elementary School
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Today’s schools have a security dilemma. They want to protect their students from a growing list of threats but they want their kids to grow up in an open, welcoming environment. Schools need ways to keep their property secure and kids safe without turning their campuses into fortresses.
Umbo can help school administrators strike the balance between security and a friendly, inviting campus. Umbo video security systems are easy to install, easy to maintain, and easy to use. Our award winning vision intelligence Light AI helps monitors your video to find intruders, open doors and other security threats. The mobile app helps you and your whole team keep an eye on things when away from your desktop.
The School and Campus
Seven Arrows Elementary is a private K-6 school in Pacific Palisades, California. Founded in 1999, the school enrolls 140 students, ~20 in each grade. The school emphasizes an education that teaches world culture and the arts alongside a rigorous academic curriculum. Alumni have gone on to some of the most prestigious middle and high schools in the country.
Seven Arrows is located on a distributed campus with multiple buildings on both sides of a busy commercial street. The main campus building once housed a dance studio in the 1930s. As a result, this building is small, intimate and beautiful. Classrooms are interconnected between many different floors. Kids can play in a theatre-like open space near the entrance gates. Across the street, the newly renovated tech building features cool equipment and more for kids to learn about and experience their world.
In Need of an Upgrade
Video security cameras play a crucial part in securing the campus. There had been burglary attempts until the administrators installed a simple analog video security system. Having those cameras there has been crucial in deterring robbers. There are also areas on the technology buildings’ roofs that invite outsiders. People would enter from across an adjoining roof and smoke and drink.
Over time, the analog camera system began to show its age.
- There were not enough cameras on campus, causing gaps in coverage
- The video quality was poor. Users could not clearly see what was happening
- The hardware with its big NVR and myriad of wires was cumbersome and difficult to work with
- Scrubbing through historical video was challenging and unintuitive
- It was difficult to grant multiple users access to video streams
It was time for an upgrade.
Installation and Usage
In collaboration with Umbo Computer Vision system integrator Gates Security, Seven Arrows installed nearly two dozen Umbo SmartDomes and SmartBullets across its campus.
Installation took about a weekend and went without a hitch. The cameras began streaming and recording to the cloud as soon as they were connected to the Internet. No additional configuration was needed.
Cameras overlooking open spaces and entrances are one of the biggest use cases for video monitoring at a school and are used to restrict the public’s access to the campus. With a SmartDome installed at one of the main entrances (see below), someone at the office can easily see that someone is at the door.
Keeping Entryways Secure
Crucially, our vision intelligence Light AI makes it easy to see whether or not the doors are being left open. This happens more often than one would think. Vendors bringing in lunch or office supplies might try to make their job easier by propping open the door. Or a parent might hold open a door for someone following them. This is a security risk and makes it more likely that an intruder gets inside the campus.
While these doors have buzzers and alarm systems attached to them, these devices cannot ensure that a door is secured. The administrative staff have found that what works best is simply glancing at the camera view themselves. By helping the staff detect when these doors are being propped open, it helps keep the campus open and inviting (and safe) for students.
How Umbo Makes it Easy
Mobile Apps for Access Anytime, Anywhere
You never know where you will be when an alert or request comes in that requires you to check in on your video. More often than not, admins are not at their desktops when the call comes in. Umbo’s mobile apps make admins’ lives easier this way. If a human intrusion alert comes in late at night — when it really might be someone trying to rob the school — the school admin can review the alert instantly on their phone rather than having to boot up their laptop and load a website.
Umbo Tip: Impressed by the ability to access video streams remotely through an app? The Umbo app is made possible by the cloud. Check out how we break down the advantages and disadvantages of the cloud and on premises tech in our guide.
An intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard
School administrators use video security footage for more than just security. It is also used to help solve day to day issues, like forgetful students and staff. In a traditional system, if a student or teacher were to forget their phone, laptop or water bottle the security director would have to hunt through footage of the time span in question. With Umbo’s intuitive user interface it is easy with our timeline thumbnails and Light AI’s human detection to find those missing objects.
Collaborative security
Because Umbo SmartCloud is on the web, it is easy to securely share access across a variety of users with selective permissions. Users can get full total admin access, or just participate as end user viewers. This way, admins can empower their colleagues to find the information they are looking for on their own.
Conclusion
Umbo offers a system with powerful, but easy-to-use features that everyday users can get familiar with and use. Our Learning Cameras’ digital streaming processes make it simple to get online in seconds for easy installation (and look good too!).
SmartCloud and its mobile apps are intuitive enough for administrators and everyday users to navigate and use without needing a 3-month college course. And Light AI brings award-winning human intrusion and behavior detection analytics to reliably help protect from intruders, theft, open doors, and other challenges school campuses face today.
