At a Glance
Supports 14,000 students and 1,600 staff across 13 campuses
Consolidated three camera platforms into one Verkada system
Gives administrators a simpler way to review relevant video when safety incidents occur
Uses Verkada Alarms, line-crossing alerts, and professional monitoring to detect after-hours trespassing
Helped law enforcement respond to after-hours campus incidents within minutes
Plans to expand use of Verkada floorplans to improve coordination with local law enforcement
Building Safer Campuses Across Higley USD
Higley Unified School District is an A-rated district serving students across 15 schools in Gilbert and Queen Creek, Arizona. With strong academics, arts, athletics, technology, and extracurricular programs, Higley is focused on preparing students for limitless opportunities — and creating the safe, welcoming campuses they need to thrive. For Kenneth deLoera, Assistant Director of Student Services, that mission is closely tied to school safety.
“I oversee student discipline, student services, and school safety,” said deLoera. “In my role, those responsibilities really go hand in hand.”
As part of his work, deLoera conducts regular campus safety walks with site administrators to evaluate fencing, perimeter security, single points of entry, and other measures designed to keep campuses safe. But while Higley USD had strong safety practices in place, its legacy camera environment made investigations slow and after-hours visibility limited.
The Challenge: Fragmented Systems and Reactive Visibility
But while Higley USD had strong safety practices in place, its legacy camera environment made it harder for administrators to quickly understand what happened when campus safety incidents occurred and limited visibility after hours. Before Verkada, Higley USD relied on three camera platforms across the district. Cameras were primarily used after incidents occurred to help administrators review relevant footage and better understand what took place.
“If something happened, we could look back at the camera and see what we could catch — but that was about it,” said deLoera.
A single incident could require administrators to log into multiple systems to piece together the full sequence of events. Video quality was inconsistent, footage could be choppy or grainy, and longer clips sometimes required staff to access a local server and wait for footage to download before reviewing it.
“There were times when we’d have one incident involving a couple of students, and site administration would have to go across one, two, or even three different platforms to view the whole sequence of events,” said deLoera. “It wasn’t very user-friendly.”
The district also needed stronger after-hours visibility. Physical fencing helped, but replacing or upgrading fencing across every campus would be costly — and even secured campuses can still experience trespassing after hours.
“For us to replace all of the fencing around our campuses, we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars — maybe hundreds of thousands if we did it across every campus,” said deLoera.
The Solution: One Platform for Cameras, Alerts, and Alarms
With Verkada, Higley USD moved from disconnected camera systems to one cloud-managed platform.
“It’s night and day. It’s so much quicker,” said deLoera. “Now it’s a single platform. It’s easy to sign in.”
Administrators can now access video, review motion events, and find relevant context from one interface. Instead of switching between platforms or waiting for footage to download, they can quickly locate the information they need to support a timely, informed response.
“With Verkada, it’s so much quicker to review,” said deLoera. “They can click forward to the next motion event and say, ‘There it is.’”
Higley USD also added Verkada Alarms to create what deLoera describes as a “digital safety barrier” around campus perimeters. By pairing cameras with line-crossing alerts and professional monitoring, the district can detect after-hours activity that may previously have gone unnoticed.
“Not only did we have the physical perimeter fencing, but we also had that digital safety barrier,” said deLoera. “We would set up line crossings, and if anyone came over during monitoring times, it would trigger an alert.”
Improving After-Hours Visibility and Response
Verkada has also changed how the district manages after-hours campus activity. “We can do everything we can to keep campuses locked and secure, but people still find a way on campus, especially when we’re not there,” said deLoera.
When someone crosses a defined perimeter during monitoring hours, Verkada can trigger an alert, notify district staff, and escalate to law enforcement when needed. In multiple cases, law enforcement arrived on campus within minutes.
“A year ago, we had no idea people were coming onto campus at night,” said deLoera. “Now, with safety monitoring, we’re getting these notifications and we can see that it’s an issue we need to be more proactive about.”
In the past year, the district experienced two after-hours incidents involving criminal damage. Verkada helped identify how individuals entered the building, surfaced doors that needed to be secured or repaired, and helped the district move forward with follow-up.
“In both cases, the first response came through Verkada, then law enforcement was contacted, and law enforcement responded immediately,” said deLoera. “Within minutes, they were on campus to capture and identify the individuals.”
Looking ahead, Higley USD plans to expand its use of Verkada floorplans to support faster, more informed emergency response. The district is updating school maps with the goal of overlaying camera locations on accurate floorplans and, under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), enabling local law enforcement to access relevant live streams only during an emergency or active safety breach.
“In an emergency, dispatch can communicate with officers on scene and say, ‘We see motion on the south end of campus,’ or ‘We see four individuals in this camera feed,’” said deLoera. “They can respond more appropriately.”
Easy for Administrators to Learn and Use
Because principals, assistant principals, and deans of students are the primary users, ease of use was essential. Higley USD needed a system administrators could learn quickly without relying heavily on IT.
“Just signing into one platform made everything so much easier,” said deLoera. “It’s been really simple to train them because it’s so user-friendly.”
deLoera serves as the district’s point of contact for training administrators on Verkada. During trainings, he shows users how to locate footage by time and camera, add multiple views, and move through video quickly.
“If we had an incident last Friday at 2:00, we can go to that camera’s history, select Friday, scroll to 2:00, and find what we’re looking for,” said deLoera. “It’s easy.”
The district has also expanded Verkada across departments, including maintenance, the warehouse, and the district office. Higley USD especially values Verkada’s multisensor cameras, which deliver multiple views from a single device and cable.
“Our campuses have a lot of nooks and crannies,” said deLoera. “The multisensor cameras allow us to capture a wide range of views on campus, so that’s always been great.”
A Stronger Foundation for Campus Safety
By unifying video security and alarms in one platform, Higley USD has strengthened its ability to improve campus visibility, detect after-hours activity, and support faster emergency response.
“We love Verkada. It’s been great,” said deLoera. “We’ve moved away from three other camera systems, and now we’re using Verkada district-wide across our campuses.”
For deLoera, Verkada’s continued product innovation adds value as the district’s safety needs evolve.
“Verkada keeps adding more features, which only adds more value to our investment,” said deLoera. “Every six months or so, there’s some new feature that comes out that we can now use, and it improves our security and safety measures.”