How Evergreen Union School District Got 24/7 Coverage for Less Than One Resource Officer

A Rural District Watched by a System That Could Not Keep Up

Evergreen Union School District runs five school programs on three campuses in Cottonwood, California, with roughly 1,300 students spread across twenty miles. Superintendent Brad Mendenhall calls the camera system they had "fairly rudimentary." It flagged nothing in real time, and tracking someone across campus meant combing footage by hand.

Nothing alerted anyone at night, on weekends, or over a vacation, so the district learned about damage when someone walked in Monday morning, then combed two to four days of recording. Site staff had no access at all. A secretary who needed footage filed a ticket and waited on the district tech team. A sheriff's request meant two or three hours of hunting to produce one hour of footage, which went out on a burned CD with viewing software attached.

Then two students threatened to blow up the school. The threat was stopped, but the debrief was worse. They had been building pipe bombs to plant around campus when nobody was there. Evergreen had no way to know if anyone was on campus after hours, and no resource officer.

Why Coram: Alerts in Seconds, on the Cameras They Already Owned

Evergreen needed more than better cameras. In a district where police response time is a function of distance, Superintendent Brad Mendenhall wanted alerts the instant something happened, and detection good enough to catch a weapon on the way in.

• Real-Time Alerts: Instant text and email with video embedded, so staff can judge a call in seconds.
• Routed Notifications: Each alert ties to the right site staff and local law enforcement.
• Gun Detection: Local law enforcement tested it on site after hours. It worked.
• Person of Interest Alerts: Get notified the moment that face appears.
• Works With Existing Cameras: No rip-and-replace. The installer was done in ninety minutes.

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How Evergreen Uses Coram Every Day

Coram runs across all three campuses, and principals, secretaries, maintenance, and the superintendent all work in it.

• Find a Student Fast: Describe what they are wearing in Coram Assistant to get their location
• Send Evidence by Email: Share footage with the sheriff in under ten minutes.
• Run Better Fire Drills: Watch every building evacuate, time it, and fix the gaps.
• Watch the Front Gate: Office staff see who is arriving before they reach the door.
• Filter Out the Noise: It tells people from vehicles from animals, so the overnight alerts are legit.

Mendenhall found a missing student in under two minutes from nothing but a green backpack. After a break-in, the team tracked the intruder across campus. The footage led to an arrest two days later. IT Director Dan Bennett says exports that took ninety minutes to two hours now take eight to ten, and go out by email. Theft and vandalism have dropped almost to nothing.

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