Located in the mountains just outside Denver, Colorado, Platte Canyon School District serves around 685 students, from preschool through 12th grade, supported by 150 staff members. The district operates multiple school buildings across a single campus, each bringing distinct safety, security, and access requirements.
For Platte Canyon, providing a safe learning environment is a deeply held commitment. Following a school tragedy 20 years ago, the district has continually invested in strengthening campus security, protecting students and staff, and ensuring that emergency responders have the information they need to act quickly and effectively.
Over the years, this commitment has driven a series of improvements to its security infrastructure, largely supported by grant funding. Today, 3xLOGIC's VIGIL Video Management System (VMS) plays a central role in helping Platte Canyon maintain visibility across its campus, streamline security operations, and support a coordinated approach to student and staff safety.
Maintaining reliable surveillance
The challenge: Platte Canyon historically had three separate camera platforms securing its different buildings and, as these systems aged, maintaining reliable surveillance became increasingly challenging. Some equipment had reached the end of its useful life, while incompatible operating systems prevented the platforms from working together. Staff had to switch between different applications to access cameras across the campus, creating unnecessary complexity and limiting their ability to accurately follow activity between buildings. In some cases, cameras and entire sections of the legacy systems were no longer functioning, leaving gaps in coverage and making it difficult to retrieve footage when needed.
The district also faced challenges associated with its location. Situated alongside a major highway and popular routes into the mountains, the campus regularly experiences passing traffic, including visitors stopping to walk dogs or occasionally attempting to camp in parking areas and on school grounds.
With students moving between multiple buildings throughout the day, including younger children using playgrounds directly connected to classrooms, Platte Canyon needed a security environment that could provide consistent, reliable visibility across indoor and outdoor spaces while supporting controlled access for staff, students, parents, and visitors. School Resource Officers (SROs), administrators, and local emergency services also needed quick access to relevant video footage, especially during incidents requiring a coordinated response.
Campus security infrastructure
The solution: Working with its security technology provider and using grant funding, Platte Canyon undertook a phased modernization of its campus security infrastructure beginning with electronic access control for building entrances, followed by a wider camera replacement program. Subsequent improvements extended security to campus gates and additional outdoor areas, creating a more comprehensive, layered approach to protecting school buildings and grounds.
At the center of this video surveillance infrastructure is 3xLOGIC VIGIL VMS, which brings camera feeds from across the district into a single management environment. The system supports approximately 210 to 220 cameras, including bullet, dome, and 360-degree models, positioned strategically throughout the campus to provide extensive coverage of buildings, entrances, corridors, and outdoor spaces.
Multiple campus areas
The unified platform enables authorized users to monitor activity and retrieve footage without switching between separate camera systems. This is particularly valuable when staff wish to follow the movement of visitors across buildings or when investigating incidents across multiple campus areas.
Platte Canyon has also implemented a layered approach to visitor access. Gates at the campus perimeter help manage vehicles entering the parking lots, with visitors required to contact school staff before being admitted. Once on-site, visitors must request access again at the building entrance before proceeding to the school office.
Access control arrangements
The district's access control arrangements also support scheduled access during busy periods, including student arrivals, class transitions, and afternoon pickup. Staff can use their badges to move between authorized areas, while designated personnel monitor doors during periods when students are moving between buildings.
VIGIL VMS provides video visibility that complements these access control measures, allowing staff to monitor activity across the campus from a central platform. For day-to-day security operations, SROs have access to live camera feeds through large monitors in their offices, with some using multiple screens to maintain visibility across different areas. Authorized staff members also have appropriate access levels, ensuring the right people can view relevant footage when needed.
Compromising student privacy
The district uses sensors to identify potential vaping, elevated noise levels, and other activity in bathrooms, where video surveillance would be inappropriate. When an alert is triggered, staff can use the video system to review activity around entrances and exits, establishing who was in the surrounding area without compromising student privacy.
VIGIL also supports collaboration with external emergency services. Authorized personnel from the sheriff's department and fire department can remotely access relevant cameras, including through mobile devices, giving them visibility into events before arriving on-site.
This complements the district's separate SchoolSAFE radio communications system, which connects school personnel, dispatch, police, and fire services during emergencies.
Video surveillance infrastructure
Immediate results: Since consolidating its video surveillance infrastructure onto 3xLOGIC VIGIL VMS, Platte Canyon’s day-to-day security management has been streamlined with improved visibility across its campus. The single, reliable platform has freed up staff resources, and the Facilities and IT team now spends less time maintaining an aging, often-broken system.
For SROs, viewing video footage from different cameras on one system has made it easier to maintain situational awareness across the campus. The system also supports a more proactive approach to safeguarding. With extensive camera coverage throughout the campus, staff can review activity in corridors, entrances, playgrounds, and outdoor spaces, helping them investigate incidents and respond to potential concerns.
Respond to potential concerns
"Our SROs have one location now that they have displayed, whether it's on their iPad or on their big screens. They're not having to try and switch between systems, and it's much more streamlined for them," explains Kay Genschorck, Director of Instructional Services. Beyond operational efficiency, the investment has helped reinforce confidence in the district's approach to school safety.
“Parents want to feel confident that their children are safe and secure while they're at school, and it's our responsibility to provide that peace of mind,” Kay Genschorck at Platte Canyon School District said. “By investing in the right technology, we can maintain visibility across our campus, manage who comes and goes, and ensure our staff and emergency responders have the information they need to act quickly if something happens. Ultimately, it's about creating an environment where students can focus on learning, and teachers can focus on teaching.”
