As South Coast Baptist College expanded, a network of different camera systems made footage retrieval slow, manual, and difficult to manage. With Verkada, the independent K–12 Christian college improved the experience, helping staff investigate incidents faster, strengthen perimeter visibility, and reduce day-to-day demand on the IST team.
Key metrics
65% faster investigations — from 2 to 3 hours to 30 minutes
75% fewer basic footage requests to IT
70% of footage requests now handled without IST involvement
6 hours per week returned to IST
A growing campus had outgrown its legacy security setup
South Coast Baptist College is an independent, co-educational Christian college in Waikiki, Western Australia. It serves more than 1,500 students and over 300 staff across Kindergarten to Year 12, alongside an on-site early learning centre, childcare centre, and church. As the college grew, cameras were added over time across campus, creating a fragmented mix of systems that became increasingly difficult to oversee and inefficient to use.
For Richie Rajan, Director of Information Systems and Technologies, the bigger issue was how much time and effort it took to retrieve footage. Staff were spending significant time locating video across different systems, then extracting, stitching, storing, and sharing it manually. In some cases, a single request required two people and a dedicated workstation, while reliability issues with some cameras added even more friction.
“We’re here to support the College, not operate as a dedicated CCTV monitoring service provider,” Rajan said.
The college needed a better way forward: something more reliable, easier for staff to use securely, and better suited to a growing campus.
Verkada fit the way the college wanted to operate
For Rajan, one of Verkada’s biggest advantages was its simplicity. “There was no requirement for on-site NVRs, which reduced cabling and network complexity,” he said, and “no NVR meant no single point of failure for the cameras.”
The platform also met the college’s broader requirements, with on-camera storage, defined retention, granular access control, Microsoft 365 identity and SSO integration, and data processed and located within Australia.
Verkada also changed the pace of investigations. With AI-powered search across multiple cameras, staff could use natural-language queries or search using a photo, helping them find what they needed much faster. For South Coast Baptist College, Verkada was not just a camera upgrade. It was a simpler, more scalable way to run security across a growing campus.
One platform across the areas that matter most
Today, the college uses a mix of Verkada dome cameras, fisheye cameras, and PTZ cameras across the perimeter, main entry points, car parks, and other high-traffic areas. These cameras help deter incidents and give staff a faster way to identify or track concerns around campus.
The college also uses air quality sensors in bathrooms and change rooms to monitor issues such as vaping and noise levels. This gives staff better awareness in privacy-sensitive spaces, while nearby cameras can provide additional context when an incident needs review. Verkada’s guidance for private areas such as bathrooms and locker rooms is to place cameras outside entrances to preserve privacy while supporting investigations.
The biggest impact: giving time back to IST
The biggest impact has been operational. Footage requests can now be handled much faster, and staff are often able to locate what they need themselves. That has significantly reduced the number of basic requests coming into IST and allowed the team to refocus on higher-value work. Everything is logged, auditable, and managed through one platform.
That change is most obvious when an incident needs review. What once required two people and a dedicated workstation can now often be handled by non-IST staff, who can securely find and share footage across multiple cameras on their own. Instead of functioning as a de facto CCTV support desk, Rajan’s team can spend more time supporting the wider needs of the college.
Giving time back to IST meant staff could access footage faster without relying on IT for every request.
Among the features Rajan’s team uses most are AI-powered search, Face Blur, motion detection on floor plans, People Motion Search, and alerts. Together, these tools help staff find footage faster, understand movement across campus, and respond more proactively when something unusual happens.
That has been especially useful during early mornings and late evenings, when the college occasionally sees unusual activity around campus. “Being able to receive alerts and track movement paths has helped us tighten perimeter security and respond more proactively,” Rajan said.
Extending Verkada into college workflows
Verkada has also become part of the college’s internal processes. South Coast Baptist College uses Verkada’s API together with Microsoft Forms and Power Automate to automate camera access requests: staff submit a form, receive time-limited access automatically, and then have that access removed once it expires, all without manual IST involvement.
That workflow reflects what the college wanted from the start: stronger security, less administrative overhead, and tighter control over who can access what.
What once required two people and a dedicated workstation can now often be handled directly by staff.
A smooth rollout with Omnia Global
Rajan also credited Omnia Global with helping make the transition straightforward. “Our experience with Omnia Global has been very positive,” he said. “Communication and response times were prompt.” He also noted that Omnia was quick to organise trial units, kept the quoting process transparent, worked with the college on suitable leasing options, and kept the team informed throughout the rollout.
Built for the long term
For South Coast Baptist College, the decision was about more than upfront cost. “The upfront cost and subscription model required careful consideration for us,” Rajan said. “However, when we looked at the total cost over five to ten years on a lease and factored in the time savings and operational efficiencies, it made sense.” He also noted that Verkada is easy to get new staff up to speed on, which is especially valuable during staff turnover.
Looking ahead, the college is exploring ways to bring its remaining cameras into the Verkada ecosystem so more of the environment can be managed from a single platform without replacing existing hardware all at once. As the campus continues to grow, that flexibility will help South Coast Baptist College keep pace without adding unnecessary complexity.