Image Credit: Opsis Architecture Key Takeaways:
In the last decade, safety has become one of the most pressing facility challenges for school districts across the country. While conversations about school security often focus on policies, training or emergency response, the built environment plays an equally critical role.
The challenge becomes particularly complex for large districts managing dozens of schools with varying ages, layouts and needs. Portland Public Schools (PPS), located in Oregon, faced this challenge with one of the largest security modernization efforts in the district’s history. As part of its 2020 bond program, the district partnered with Arcadis, a global design and consultancy firm, to upgrade security camera systems across its facilities and sites.
What began as a relatively simple surveillance project quickly evolved into a comprehensive facility initiative that combined detailed site assessments, technology upgrades and advanced computational modeling to ensure students, staff and visitors feel safe no matter where they are on campus.
As one of the largest school districts in Oregon, the Portland Public Schools’ facilities are spread across a wide urban area, and as a result, facility managers must balance safety and accessibility while maintaining a welcoming educational environment.
The district’s primary objective was to improve security coverage in two areas: building perimeters and parking lots, according to Jonathan Steel, business unit director for architecture at Arcadis.
“Those are often the locations where incidents occur and where the public realm intersects with school property,” Steel says. “The district wanted to improve coverage around doors, windows, access points and parking areas while ensuring investments were made strategically.”
The overall security projects budget totaled approximately $25.9 million and included classroom door hardware improvements, intrusion alarm upgrades and expanded camera coverage. Of that amount, roughly $17.7 million was allocated to security cameras.
The work was divided into six phases encompassing 86 different sites, including elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and other district facilities. Each campus presented unique challenges related to building size, layout, existing infrastructure and security needs.
Before camera layouts were finalized, Steel and his team conducted comprehensive site surveys at every location, documenting existing conditions and gathering the information needed to create accurate building and site plans. The district’s facility staff accompanied the team throughout the process, helping identify operational concerns and providing institutional knowledge about each campus.
Steel’s team also evaluated the district’s recording and storage capabilities to ensure the upgraded systems would function effectively long after installation.
“There’s no point in having great coverage if your storage capacity is inadequate,” Steel says. “We looked at what infrastructure was nearing the end of its life, what needed to be upgraded and how those improvements would support the expanded system.”
Steel’s team mapped every existing camera and analyzed current coverage levels before developing new layouts. This baseline assessment allowed the district to quantify existing performance and clearly measure the improvements generated by the upgrades.
Interior camera placement followed district standards, focusing on gathering areas, building entrances and exits, bathroom entry areas, ticket booths, cafeteria kiosks and other areas identified through consultation with school staff.
Exterior coverage required a more sophisticated approach. To accomplish the district’s goals, Steel’s team developed a detailed methodology that evaluated camera performance based on three coverage zones: identifiable, informational and observational.
The “identifiable zone” consisted of areas where footage quality would allow investigators to clearly identify an individual’s face. The “informational zone” provided enough detail to determine characteristics such as height, build, clothing or other obvious traits. Beyond those ranges, cameras entered the “observational zone,” where activity could be detected but identification was difficult.
These zones helped facility managers understand the level of coverage they could expect in different areas of campuses.
While many security projects rely primarily on consultant experience and manual design, Steel’s team introduced a computational design process that changed the way camera layouts were developed.
The process combined human expertise with algorithmic modeling tools capable of evaluating hundreds of thousands of potential camera configurations in seconds. The process began with establishing a series of baselines.
First, the team analyzed existing conditions to determine the current coverage levels. Next, security consultants created layouts using traditional design methods based on their professional and past experience, Steel explains. These layouts served as a benchmark against which computational solutions could be measured.
Steel says he and his team then used a computer-aided design program to generate a theoretical 100 percent coverage solution without considering budget constraints. Finally, the system optimized layouts within actual budget limits before reallocating unused funds among schools to further improve overall performance.
For the initial group of schools used to test the methodology, the traditional consultant-generated solution finished approximately $260,000 under budget but fell nearly 29 percent short of the desired coverage target. The optimized computational approach came within 2.3 percent of the goal while remaining more than $138,000 under budget.
The team also was able to account for real-world conditions such as trees, building recesses and other visual obstructions that often complicate the processes.
“We needed both components,” Steel says. “The computational model could generate highly optimized solutions, but you still need experienced professionals to validate the results and ensure they make sense from a practical security perspective.”
That balance between technology and human expertise proved critical. While the software identified mathematically optimal solutions, security specialists evaluated whether additional cameras would provide meaningful value or simply increase costs without improving safety outcomes.
By the time five of the project’s six phases had been completed, the initiative was approximately 40 percent under budget and on schedule. Steel and his team ultimately helped the district achieve its coverage objectives while generating roughly $7 million in savings.
Rather than returning or redirecting those funds, the district reinvested the savings into security enhancements that had previously been considered unaffordable. Those improvements included perimeter fencing, access control measures and door hardware improvements to further strengthen campus safety.
The project also established a repeatable framework for future facility improvements. Once the modeling approach was validated on the initial phase, Steel says his team was able to apply the methodology across the remainder of the district’s portfolio with greater speed and efficiency.
As school districts continue to rethink how their facilities support safety and the student experience, the Portland Public Schools’ project illustrates how strategic planning and technology can come together to help maximize both security and long-term value. By approaching campus safety as a systemwide investment rather than a series of standalone upgrades, the district created a model that can inform future security improvements across other K-12 schools.
Elaina Myers is the assistant editor of the facilities market. She has covered various topics from pest management to resilience to sustainability and is the beat writer for special days. She also manages the FacilitiesNet social media accounts. Elaina is an avid cat lover and world traveler.
