_{Thumbnail photo courtesy of DNUSD Communications Director Michael Hawkins}

Ryan Bahten summed up a setback to Del Norte Unified School District’s new system for monitoring emergencies in real time using its surveillance cameras with one word: RAMageddon.

DNUSD’s Information Network Services director said that in order for the district’s new ActiveNet system to work efficiently, the network video recorders at each school site need replacing. But the current skyrocketing costs in memory chips — driven, Bahten says, by the prevalence of artificial intelligence — means that won’t be cheap.

“Dell, as an example, will only give us a quote for six days on a server because every six days they expect pricing increases,” Bahten told trustees Thursday, describing 30-to-50% increases in technology costs month over month. “Right now, today, if I was to buy an NVR, we’re probably looking at anywhere from $35,000 to $40,000 per unit for that one box. But, unfortunately, we’re at a point where what we have is failing out there for our security camera hardware.”

Each of those security cameras are connected to ActiveNet, Bahten’s boss, DNUSD Superintendent Jeff Harris said.

Four members of the Board of Trustees approved using about $1.4 million from DNUSD’s technology infrastructure fund to pay for new Verkada Command Connector security camera storage hardware and Verkada Command management software. 

Trustees also approved using the funds to pay for a few Verkada cameras. According to Bahten, these cameras will be installed in challenging places that often require drilling through a wall or running conduit. 

The vendor, Development Group Inc., toured each site and determined that “there are a handful of locations where it makes a whole heck of a lot more sense to purchase Verkada cameras,” Bahten said.

“At the end of the project we will have installed close to 550 … cameras,” he said. “We’ll be approaching 600 total cameras.”

Trustee Area 5 representative Michael Greer was absent.

The Board’s approval of the upgrade came after Harris announced that through ActiveNet, DNUSD has a full accounting of its campuses through aerial imagery, in-space surround photography and maps that are to scale for the first time.

The maps show where utility shut-offs are including where each door and window is as well as their heights, Harris said. This comprehensive overview of every school in the district is something that DNUSD’s Information Network Services department has wanted for a long time, the superintendent told trustees.

“The other piece with ActiveNet, is in the event of an active emergency — this could be the act of an assailant, it could be a fire, it could be a gas leak, it could be anything else — county dispatch can activate ActiveNet and then dispatch could pull up on a screen, an image of that location where something is going on,” Harris said. “They can provide real-time direction, information and visibility.”

District administrators are asking each campus to activate ActiveNet during fire drills and active assailant drills, Harris said. The Del Norte County Office of Education is in the process of hiring a safety and critical response manager who will be tasked with making ActiveNet an integral part of a school site’s safety drills.

The safety and critical response manager will also work with Del Norte County dispatch to let them know when and how to activate ActiveNet, Harris said.

“Then (we’ll) do some weekend drills where they’re actually running a full drill as if there’s a fire, as if there’s an assailant, with other law enforcement agencies involved,” he said.

Before the Board of Trustees voted, Bahten said he could give them a list of school sites that have failing network video recorders. Del Norte High School’s NVR has been switched out twice, he said. The one it has is slightly newer, but still out of date.

Meanwhile, DNUSD staff are having to restart the NVR at Bess Maxwell Elementary School almost every week, Bahten said.

Del Norte Teacher Association President Amber Tiedeken-Cron, a teacher at Smith River School, said she’s had experience with the network video recorder at her school, saying it took her about 40 minutes to access roughly 20 seconds of video.

“I just imagine our admin and office staff can probably find better ways to use that time,” she said. “Also, if I was teacher-in-charge and I was struggling, I could reach out to IT and get help quicker if the software and all that is the same everywhere.”