How Evergreen Union School District Turned Firearm Threats Into Fast, Reliable Alerts

A Rural District, a 20-Mile Spread, and 90-Minute Footage Pulls

Evergreen Union School District is a small, rural district: three campuses, roughly 1,300 students, and about 200 staff spread across 20 miles. When the district learned students had been “working on incendiary devices, bombs and things like that,” the conversation around security changed. For Dan Bennett, IT Director, the priority became clear: a system that could spot threats early and get the right people alerted fast.

The district relied on a Milestone server with Axis cameras. It worked — just — but it was slow and heavy to use. Pulling video for incidents like theft or people siphoning gasoline was painful. “It would take me 90 minutes at a minimum just to get all that footage… it was cumbersome to say the least.”

The video server itself was “getting rather long in the tooth,” each campus had a different, aging setup, and some locations had no cameras at all. The district had also tested a startup app that pushed 911-style alerts directly to the sheriff’s department, but law enforcement “did not want the extra input,” so the team went back to the drawing board. In a rural area with spotty cell coverage and long response distances, Bennett needed reliable firearm detection, simpler tools for trespassing and investigations, and a platform that could scale across all three sites.

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Firearm Detection, Tested by the Sheriff’s Department

Bennett found Coram, and firearm detection quickly became the anchor use case. After the cameras were online, a sheriff’s detective came out to test the system by brandishing weapons on campus. He immediately saw the value and asked to be personally notified whenever a firearm appears on camera, since he and several colleagues have children in the district. A few sheriff’s department staff are now queued to receive those alerts.

Coram was deployed through a local integrator who had never installed it before. Even so, the process was smooth: the district reused its existing Axis cameras and had Coram up and running in about 90 minutes, keeping Milestone live in parallel during the transition. “It didn’t take me long at all to trust Coram enough to completely stop looking at the Milestone system.”

Coram stood out for a few specific reasons:

• Practical firearm detection: Tested on campus and trusted by local law enforcement
• Faster investigations: No more 90-minute clip compilations
• Trespass, plate, and face tools: AI-powered features that are actually usable
• Low-friction rollout: Existing Axis cameras reused
• Engineer-level support: An engineer in the chat within minutes, not scripted Tier 1 replies

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Faster Answers for Staff and Law Enforcement

Beyond firearm detection, Coram’s AI tools have changed how quickly the district can respond and investigate. Trespass detection now drives clean notifications, replacing the clunky Axis-based workflow that “did not work very well.” License plate recognition is in place, with clear future use cases already planned. Face search and alerts help with sensitive custody situations.

Support has stood out as well. Bennett often starts with the in-app AI help bot, and when he needs deeper help, an engineer joins the chat within minutes. “My problem was solved like seconds after that.”

What Evergreen Union School District Is Doing with Coram

• Detecting firearms and alerting the right people: Notifications when a firearm appears on camera, with sheriff’s department staff queued to receive them.
• Catching trespassing with clean notifications: The clunky Axis-based workflow is gone.
• Preparing the front office for custody situations: Face alerts flag a legally barred parent at the entrance so staff are ready to respond.
• Investigating without the 90-minute footage pull: Faster answers on theft, siphoned gasoline, and other incidents.

Bennett already talks about Coram at county-wide tech meetings, and his superintendent recommends it to peers at superintendent roundtables. He sums up his experience simply: the product works, and he wants more districts to know about it.

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