A security camera mounted on a mast sits on the roof of a

No more smooching around hidden corners for Live Oak High School
students, as a camera security system worthy of

Big Brother

has been installed on the 29-acre campus.
Morgan Hill – No more smooching around hidden corners for Live Oak High School students, as a camera security system worthy of “Big Brother” has been installed on the 29-acre campus.

The system is very similar to the technology used at Sobrato High School, installed when the school was built three years ago. To provide better security, cameras have been installed at strategic points throughout the campus. They can be manipulated remotely to change their focus and monitored remotely if necessary.

According to Live Oak Principal Nick Boden, the cameras are not constantly monitored, but used more when something is happening on campus or has already occurred. Sobrato High’s cameras are also not constantly monitored.

“Even if we had the resources to have someone do so, that is not the intent of the system,” Boden said. “The cameras provide us an opportunity to just increase the ability to make sure that kids and staff are in a very safe environment and allow us to monitor activity on campus after hours, to make sure our facilities stay in the kind of condition they need to stay in.”

The Live Oak system includes 40 Sony high-resolution cameras that can quickly pan 360 degrees, as well as tilt and zoom. The cameras are located in special housings to protect them from the environment.

One of the considerations for the new system is that it be user friendly.

“We designed the Live Oak video network to meet the stringent technology requirements of today’s growing school communities,” said Rany Polany, president of PWT-IT Solutions, Inc., the company that designed and installed the equipment. “We needed to ensure that the Live Oak administrators and staff would have unrivaled access to easy-to-use real-time data and network monitoring services. We were able to make the new network a true productivity enhancement to overall campus operations.”

The company’s engineering team determined the best placement for the cameras to cover the campus and its 17 buildings adequately. Special attention was paid, according to PWT-IT’s spokesperson, to “targeting specific campus ‘hot spots’ and points of entry.”

Teacher Donna Foster, who is also president of the Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers, said that having the system in place is comforting for the staff.

“Although I don’t know that much about the details of the system, I do know that it was put in place last spring and was instrumental in helping identify some person on campus who had vandalized parts of the campus,” she said. “I like it. I’m on the edge of campus, near the parking lot, and I’m very happy that they’ve installed the cameras.”

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