Fifteen seconds. That's how long it took Adam Neely to reach a student having an asthma attack in an empty hallway. No one else knew she was there. No one would have found her for minutes, maybe longer. But Neely's watch buzzed with an alert, and fifteen seconds later, help arrived.
In those fifteen seconds, everything changed. For the better.
As Principal at Prescott High School in Arizona, Neely leads a community institution that has served students for 120 years. With approximately 1,500 students, the school's mission centers on providing a safe and supportive environment that fosters comprehensive education. But for years, Neely struggled with a frustrating reality that plagues school administrators everywhere.
He was always arriving after the damage was done.
The Tail-Chasing Years
Every principal knows the feeling. A fight breaks out, and you hear about it after students have already been hurt. A medical emergency happens in a far corner of campus, and precious minutes pass before anyone responds. Equipment goes missing, and you only discover it during the next inventory check.
Neely spent years in this reactive mode. As a teacher, as an assistant principal, and finally as principal, he felt like he was constantly chasing his tail. Security cameras existed, but they served primarily as investigation tools. You reviewed footage after incidents occurred, piecing together what happened when it was already too late to change the outcome.
"In all my time as a principal, assistant principal, and even as a teacher I felt like we were constantly chasing our tails," Neely recalls. "Everything we did with regard to student safety was reactive."
The tools available simply didn't support proactive intervention. Cameras captured events but didn't alert anyone to them. Staff members couldn't be everywhere at once. Students moved through hallways, bathrooms, and outdoor spaces beyond the reach of constant supervision.
Then Neely discovered something that changed everything: a 15-second head start on every crisis.
The Transformation
Prescott High School's implementation of VOLT AI began through a local connection. Neely was intrigued by the feature set and the promise of a more proactive approach to school safety. What he found exceeded his expectations.
The system sends immediate notifications to designated staff members' devices, including smartwatches, when it detects potential issues. This simple capability revolutionized how Neely and his team operate. Instead of reviewing footage after incidents, they receive alerts the instant something begins.
"This is the first time where I really have been able to be out ahead of things that are happening," Neely explains. "I'm not just using my cameras for investigation. I'm using them for immediate action and response, which is pretty special."
The technology works with the school's existing camera infrastructure, requiring no expensive replacements. Integration proved smooth enough that Neely's IT department called it one of their easiest implementations ever. Within weeks, Prescott High School transformed from reactive to proactive security.
Fifteen Seconds That Matter
The asthma attack incident crystallized what this transformation means in practice.
A student was walking through an empty hallway when she began struggling to breathe. No teachers were nearby. No other students witnessed her distress. Under the old system, she might have collapsed before anyone found her.
Instead, Neely received a "person down" notification on his watch. The system had detected someone on the ground in that hallway. Fifteen seconds later, he arrived to find the young woman against the wall, struggling through an asthma attack. The school nurse responded immediately after.
"No one would have been able to see this young lady, but this system noticed her," Neely recounts. "I was there in 45 seconds."
This is what proactive security looks like. Not faster investigation after tragedies, but intervention before situations become tragedies.
Beyond Medical Emergencies
The person down detection that saved the student with asthma represents just one capability in Neely's new toolkit.
- Fight Detection: Staff can now respond to altercations within seconds of their onset. Before, fights might escalate significantly before anyone intervened. Now, Neely and his assistant principal receive instant alerts and can sprint to locations before situations spiral out of control.
- Crowd Sense: The system detects unusual crowd formations that might indicate developing conflicts. This proves especially valuable for monitoring areas where cameras cannot be present, like locker rooms. When students suddenly gather outside a locker room, staff receive alerts about the crowd buildup and can intervene before whatever is happening inside escalates.
- Weapon Detection: While Prescott High has thankfully not experienced real weapon incidents, the system's capabilities have been thoroughly tested. The wooden rifles used by the school's ROTC unit trigger immediate recognition, demonstrating the sensitivity of the detection algorithms.
- Unwanted Access Prevention: Customized rules detect unauthorized access during specific times or at specific locations. This capability has helped identify theft attempts and caught students present in off-limits areas.
"We had a scenario that had barely even gotten started out on a blacktop, and both myself and my assistant principal were able to literally go sprinting with a notification and get there before that interaction happened," Neely shares.
Get answers directly from K-12 Schools who have implemented VOLT.
Signal Without Noise
One concern with any alert-based system is notification overload. If staff receive constant false alarms, they begin ignoring alerts entirely. Neely reports that Prescott High has not experienced this problem.
"Everything that pops up for me is at least knowledge of something happening on my campus, and to me that's useful," he explains. "I don't get anything where I check the alert and realize that the system is trying to flag something that is not what it thinks it is."
This signal-to-noise ratio matters enormously. Every alert provides actionable information. Staff trust the system because it doesn't cry wolf. When a notification arrives, they respond with urgency because experience has taught them the alerts are meaningful.
Privacy That Parents Trust
School security technology often raises privacy concerns, particularly from parents worried about surveillance of their children. Neely addressed this challenge directly through the system's design.
VOLT AI tracks individuals based on gait and movement without using facial recognition. The system looks for concerning activities and behaviors rather than identifying specific students. This approach allows comprehensive monitoring without creating a database of student identities or movements.
"The fact that we aren't doing facial recognition alleviates the concerns," Neely notes about parent reactions. Community response has been overwhelmingly positive once parents understand the privacy protections built into the system.
QuickStrike
In fifteen seconds, everything can change. A medical emergency can become a tragedy. A conflict can escalate to violence. A dangerous situation can spiral beyond control.
Or, in fifteen seconds, help can arrive. A struggling student can receive care. A developing fight can be stopped before the first punch. A security threat can be contained before anyone gets hurt.
Adam Neely spent years arriving after the damage was done. Now he arrives in fifteen seconds, every time. The technology gave him something no educator had before: a head start on every crisis.
"VOLT AI offered a real opportunity to create the level of safety that I didn't think was possible," Neely reflects.
For the students at Prescott High School, that level of safety means a young woman with asthma got help in forty-five seconds instead of lying alone in a hallway. It means fights get broken up before injuries occur. It means their principal can protect them in ways that weren't possible before.
In fifteen seconds, everything can change. Adam Neely makes sure it changes for the better.
