Glasscock Independent School District, a public school district located in Garden City, Texas, with hundreds of students across two schools, has embarked on Phase Three of a plan to convert to a largely wireless, keyless access-controlled environment, supplemented by some hardwired doors as well. The district ultimately is looking to streamline its security and access within its buildings.
About 18 months ago, Wade Williams of VGI, which is managing the installation of this on-going project, worked with the district to finalize Phase Two plans for more than 70 Allegion wireless locks for the Texas school, managed by an existing 3xLOGIC infinias access control system. Phase Two involved wireless locks for internal classroom doors. Phase One of the project started in late 2018 with 60 exterior doors being fitted with both wireless and wired locks.
Scott Bicknell, Superintendent, Glasscock ISD, contacted Williams after touring a nearby school district’s system of more than 100 doors, managed by the infinias system. “We wanted to stop people from entering the school during certain times,” explained Bicknell. “Our focus so far has been more on access control than video surveillance, but we’re looking at video in the future as well.”
Phase Three, which is on-going in the fall of this year will see 38 more wireless locks added to the mix, in order to secure all academic settings at the school. The pre-K to high school facility serves approximately 300 students. “Phase Three is a nice addition to the system; Phase Two was focused on where students spend most of their time during the day,” said Bicknell. “Now, we’ll add more wireless locks as the budget has become available, and we’ll be about two-thirds wireless, supplemented by some hardwired doors — all managed by the infinias system.”
Glasscock ISD maintains multiple buildings, comprising two campuses, all connected into one large building. Other facilities include an agriculture shop, cafeteria and concessions, two gyms and a bus depot.
The school building has three outer doors and all visitors must be buzzed in by intercom. In this way, there is no free flow of outside parties into the building or anywhere around the building during the school day. “We didn’t want to fall behind in addressing our security needs,” said Bicknell, “we decided we would proceed from the exterior doors to the interior and now we’re achieving much better peace of mind for the safety and security of our students and staff.”
The exterior and interior doors are access card-based, and only staff and teachers are issued cards. Glasscock maintains multiple user groups with different access privileges and times. Multiple staff members have the access control application on their phones and these staff can manage the system remotely at any time, from anywhere.
“The system is really convenient,” commented Bicknell. “Throughout the installation so far, it’s been smooth sailing. The system has been great improvement. Now we have a system with very little maintenance needed, just batteries in each of the individual locks.” There about 70 teachers and staff on the infinias system and a total of 138 doors are managed overall.
