Public school system automates lockdown process with integrated solution

District officials are working with local law-enforcement agencies to provide “key personnel” with access to surveillance video, Harris said. Also, the district is integrating its camera system into the dispatch center at New Mexico State University, where Arrowhead Park Early College High School—part of the Las Cruces school district—is located.

Any configured police or fire laptop can connect to the school district’s high-speed WiFi connection at any of the campuses, because the Las Cruces district has established a separate Wi-Fi layer for emergency responders as part of its infrastructure, Harris said.

The district is in the process of increasing its wireless capacity to meet the growing demands on the network, as the number of devices in each classroom continues to rise. A move toward electronic scholastic testing is also expected to increase the burden on the system. To address those needs, the district’s plans call for a 10-gigabit connection in the ceiling of every classroom.

The district has also taken measures to strengthen the network and design a fail-safe architecture that can withstand high-stress situations, Harris said.

“We could always give the [scholastic] test the next day,” he said. “[But] if suddenly we lose communications during—heaven forbid—a school-shooter event, that is just plain not acceptable. It just cannot happen.”