Securing Chicago Area Schools — Smarter School Security with AI Video Analytics

Challenge

A large suburban high school with over 4,000 students was facing mounting pressure to improve campus security after repeated concerns about vulnerabilities at side entrances and gaps in surveillance coverage. While the school had already invested in a video management system, it lacked the intelligence and responsiveness needed to detect threats before they became incidents. Administrators wanted to enhance real-time situational awareness without scrapping their infrastructure or disrupting day-to-day operations.

The district engaged Applied Network Concepts (ANC), who partnered directly with Vaidio.ai to assess the current state of the school's security and identify a smarter, more adaptable solution. What they uncovered was a complex mix of physical access risks, technical limitations, and integration challenges that would require advanced video intelligence to overcome.

Inadequate threat detection and tracking
The existing system couldn't recognize unknown individuals, generate real-time alerts, or trace movement across camera zones—leaving critical visibility gaps.

Operational strain on security personnel
Monitoring live feeds manually placed a heavy burden on staff and delayed response times in high-risk scenarios.

Legacy infrastructure and evolving IT systems
The school needed to preserve its existing video equipment while navigating a district-wide migration to a new student information system.

District-wide scalability requirements
This implementation had to support seamless expansion across multiple campuses, each with its own infrastructure mix.

Without an AI-driven solution, the school risked continued exposure to unmonitored access, slow incident response, and growing system fragmentation. Leadership needed a platform that could close security gaps today while laying a foundation for smart, scalable protection tomorrow.

Impact

Without Vaidio, the school district was operating in a reactive security environment. Their existing VMS could record footage, but it couldn't intelligently analyze it in real time. That meant there were no proactive alerts when unrecognized individuals entered campus through unmonitored doors—only delayed investigations after an incident had occurred.

Security personnel were left to manually monitor dozens of camera feeds and respond to threats based on visual cues alone. The lack of automation created blind spots and operational fatigue, while increasing the risk of unauthorized access going unnoticed. The school's IT team also had concerns about long-term scalability, especially given plans to migrate to a new student information system district-wide.

School leadership knew they couldn't afford to fall behind on safety—but they also couldn't justify a complete overhaul of their infrastructure. They needed a flexible, forward-compatible solution that could bridge gaps in coverage, enhance real-time responsiveness, and integrate cleanly into their evolving IT ecosystem. Vaidio delivered exactly that.

Solution

To modernize campus safety without disrupting existing infrastructure, Applied Network Concepts (ANC) deployed Vaidio.ai as an intelligent software layer on top of the district's current video system. This allowed the school to unlock advanced AI capabilities—like facial recognition and real-time alerts—without ripping out or replacing cameras or hardware. From day one, the solution was designed to fit the district's goals: protect students more proactively, preserve their prior investments, and remain flexible for future expansion.

ANC and Vaidio collaborated closely with the school's IT department to roll out a solution that included:

• Facial recognition to identify unknown individuals entering non-main doors
• Cross-camera tracking to trace a person's path across campus
• Automated alerting and integration with the school's video system for instant incident review
• Importing and managing face data from both legacy and new student information systems
• Optional integration with AMAG access control, enabling automatic lockdowns in the event of a security trigger

The transformation was immediate. Security teams gained visibility into who was on campus—and where—at any given moment. Unauthorized individuals were now detectable in real time, allowing administrators to intervene before threats escalated. Meanwhile, the IT department received hands-on training and was able to make its own system-level modifications with ease.

Most importantly, the school district was able to achieve a significant leap forward in safety while staying well within budget. Instead of replacing their entire VMS, they enhanced it. The integration was so seamless that administrators reported the system was "just working"—with no disruption, minimal false alarms, and full scalability to additional schools across the district.

Conclusion

Vaidio.ai's AI-powered analytics, combined with ANC's deep systems integration expertise, helped a large school shift from reactive to proactive security. The solution preserved existing infrastructure, enhanced threat response, and enabled seamless IT integration—demonstrating that intelligent surveillance doesn't have to mean high cost or complexity.

About Applied Network Concepts

Applied Network Concepts (ANC) is a security technology integrator specializing in the design and deployment of advanced surveillance, access control, and intercom solutions. With decades of experience serving enterprise campuses, school districts, data centers, and industrial facilities, ANC is known for its ability to cross-integrate complex systems into seamless, scalable security platforms. Headquartered in Illinois and licensed in multiple states, ANC combines deep technical expertise with a hands-on, customer-first approach to deliver secure, future-ready environments.