How Hart Public Schools Added AI to More Than 100 Existing Cameras in Minutes

Good Cameras, an Outdated VMS, and Footage That Went Missing

Hart Public Schools is a district in Michigan serving more than 1,300 students across four schools on a single campus. It had already invested in cameras: more than 100 IP cameras from vendors including Panasonic, Advidia, and IPro, with feeds of satisfactory quality.

The software managing them was another matter. The district’s video management system was notably outdated. Remote access to video was challenging and sluggish, and the system offered no AI features or analytics — so when an incident occurred, the IT team carried the burden of locating the right footage by hand.

Worse, the footage was not always there. The previous system recorded solely on motion, and it frequently missed crucial moments, often failing to detect movement at all. For Jason Gale, Director of IT, that meant prolonged investigations on top of an antiquated system that took real effort to maintain.

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AI on the Cameras Hart Already Had, Live in Minutes

Working with Gale, the Coram team installed multiple Coram Point NVRs, and in mere minutes all of the cameras were operational. None of the existing school security cameras had to be replaced; the only hardware change was several malfunctioning fisheye cameras, swapped for new Coram AI fisheye cameras. “Coram AI is one of the first systems that I have seen that can take our existing cameras and add AI to it,” Gale said.

Coram stood out for a few specific reasons:

• Works with existing cameras: More than 100 IP cameras from multiple vendors came onto the platform without replacement
• Setup in minutes: Coram Point NVRs installed and every camera operational in mere minutes
• Discover, the ChatGPT of video surveillance: A search like ‘kid on a skateboard’ returns relevant clips within seconds
• Continuous 24/7 recording: 30 days or more of uninterrupted storage, so the relevant clip exists when an incident happens
• Facial recognition and alerts: Swift identification of campus visitors, with alerts for persons of interest
• Responsive support: “I send an email, and somebody is working on it within minutes,” Gale said

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Faster Investigations, No Missed Clips, and a System That Keeps Improving

The change showed up first in investigations. Where the IT team once spent its time locating footage, Discover finds it from a plain description, and the platform is easy enough to use and access that far more people at Hart can run a search themselves. “It is also easier to use and access, so we can give so many people access to the platform and do search,” Gale said.

Continuous recording removed the other worry. With 24/7 recording and 30 days or more of storage, the IT and security teams have the peace of mind that the relevant clip will be there when they need it. “I never miss a video clip,” Gale affirmed. “Coram AI knows this is a kid and records and stores it.”

What Hart Public Schools Is Doing with Coram

• Searching footage by description: Discover turns a query like ‘kid on a skateboard’ into relevant clips within seconds, drastically reducing investigation times.
• Recording everything, all the time: Continuous 24/7 recording replaces motion-only capture that missed movement.
• Identifying visitors and persons of interest: Facial recognition identifies campus visitors quickly, and alerts fire for specific individuals.
• Putting cameras in front of leadership: The Kiosk feature lets the superintendent view specific cameras on a monitor without logging into the system.
• Getting new features, not a static system: Coram has consistently introduced significant features since going live, unlike security systems that sit unchanged until a major upgrade years later.

“I'm really impressed with how well the software works and how user-friendly it is,” Gale said. He and the district’s superintendent have since discussed Coram’s role in improving student safety on their monthly podcast — a measure of how committed Hart is to using AI and the latest in security to keep students and the campus safe.

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