The Escambia County (Ala.) Board of Education approved a bid of more than $700,000 for a video surveillance system at its Thursday, Feb. 21 meeting.
In a motion made by Mike Edwards and seconded by Mike Hoomes, the board approved to award bid 2019 to 2023 for a video surveillance system to Information Transport Solutions not to exceed the original bid amount of $731,234.95.
“We worked on this for about a year doing preliminary fact-finding to determine what would best meet our needs for a surveillance system in all of our schools,” said Escambia County School Superintendent John Knott. “The ones we have now are old and outdated and require a lot of support. We want to update the system across the whole county in all schools. We would have the newest digital technology with Information Technology (IT) cameras, and the ability to have remote access to those. There is a movement to be able to provide for the safety of our students and staff. We brought in professionals, worked with law enforcement, talked about what we need. These cameras will have full coverage of the inside of our schools and all classrooms will be covered by video. We have some now, but not throughout the county.”
Knott said the packet will have cameras that record the exterior perimeter of the school. He said the overall concern is how the system is going to be able to fund the packet.
'The quote is system-wide for all schools,” said Knott. “We've already got $230,000 funds to start the project off pretty quickly. We've been using funds we received that were for educational enhancement and technology funds the legislature released to the schools last year. We think there will be additional funds from that this year to be available and we will use those to move forward, and some grants. We hope we can get started, then funds will come in, and there will be no delays, so we can move on to next school, with no delay.”
Knott said the plan is to get every school updated as soon as possible. He said included in the bid, is a full five-year service packet that came with it by the vendor, for the replacement of any thing that goes wrong. He said the technicians would come to the school and that service and maintenance is included for five years.
“We felt that was crucial,” said Knott. “We needed to have ongoing support in place.”
Knott said the bids ranged from this, the lowest, at $731,234.95 to $1,500,000, and that he and his team did research on different kinds of systems, to make sure they establish specifications that would meet the standards that they were wanting.
He noted that the board reserves the right to purchase from the bid in phases based upon district needs and available funds as determined by the superintendent, basically to ensure a county-wide upgrade.
In other business, the board voted approval to sell surplus buses, vehicles and equipment and the revenue from the sales will go into fleet renewal. Knott said the surplus equipment is normally bid out in-house, but this time they used an online service called Forum, where amounts can be set and the buyer pays any fees.
The board voted approval of SchoolStatusprogram for data analytics and communication in the amount of $39,600.00. According to Knott, the system can be utilized from the central office down to teacher use and would show all data about a student. He said it can be used to identify students at risk and be used as a resourceful tool.
The board also voted approval to award Wide Area Network Services (WAN) mini-bid to Information Transport Solutions in the amount of $201,600.00. (Pending E-rate approval) The WAN services mini-bid is for a term of 48 months beginning July 1, 2019 and is contingent upon E-rate funding.
According to Supervisor of Technology Jamie Burkett, Information Transport Solutions will save money, provides better service, has less down time, will drastically help school internets and has an e-rate percent from 85 to 80.
The next school board meeting will be at 4:30 p.m., on Thursday, March 21, at W.S. Neal Middle School in Brewton.
