Clark-Pleasant Schools will spend more than $2 million to improve security at its eight schools, marking the most significant investment in safety the district has made since voters approved a public safety referendum last year.
They plan to add more than 500 cameras across all schools, an increased number of door locks and a system that will alert school personnel when an exterior door is open for an extended period of time, Business Director Jay Staley said.
Equipment will arrive in May, with the majority of the work set to take place this summer, Staley said.
The school board unanimously approved a $2.1 million bid on Tuesday from Midwest Security.
The move is part of the school’s continued efforts to improve safety and security at its schools after 57 percent of voters approved a public safety referendum that will rake in about $12 million over the course of eight years through an increase in property taxes. The district has said it will use that money to increase its police presence, make technological advances, hire mental health counselors and technologically advance its security features.
Clark-Pleasant has already set aside $500,000 from its rainy day fund and the same amount in its operations budget. The remaining $1.1 million will come from a mix of those funds and referendum monies, Staley said.
Along with cameras and door locks, other security technology will be upgraded. Clark-Pleasant plans to have the project substantially completed by fall break in October. Extra money in the district’s rainy day fund allowed them to request bids for the entire project at once, creating a more efficient process than what the district originally planned before the referendum, which was to improve security at one or two schools at a time, he said.
“This will be all across the district,” Staley said. “We didn’t have a consistent software platform. We have multiple platforms. We wanted to migrate that to a central point. For front door access, our software is limited in the number of users. This will allow us to schedule (when) doors (are open) as needed.”
Since voters approved the referendum in the November election, the district has hired a director of security, increased the number of school resource officers from two to five, entered into a contract with Adult and Child Health for counseling services at its elementary students, hired two crisis counselors at its middle and high schools and hired a mental health coordinator.
