Page 66 - Security Today, July 2017

ACCESS CONTROL
AN INTEGRATED APPROACH
TO A SAFER SCHOOL DISTRICT
Colorado K-12 district invests in long-term security solution By Ellie Randall
LITTLETON PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT —OR MORE COMMONLY KNOWN AS LPS—IS LOCATED JUST 10 MILES OUTSIDE THE BUSTLING DOWNTOWN DENVER, AND SERVES SEVERAL COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE SOUTH- ERN DENVER METROPOLITAN AREA. LPS IS THE FIFTEENTH LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICT IN COLORADO, OPERATING THREE HIGH SCHOOLS, FOUR MIDDLE SCHOOLS, 13 ELE- MENTARY SCHOOLS, A PRESCHOOL, TWO CHARTER SCHOOLS AND SEV- ERAL ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMS THAT SPAN OVER 29 MILES.
The district is responsible for more than 15,000 students day-to-day and employs over 2,500 faculty and staff. Managing security and access for this amount of people can be a chal- lenge—especially given all other security fac- tors campuses face—but the LPS campuses are also open for use within the Littleton community.
“Schools are often not only educational facilities, but also centerpieces of the commu- nity,” said Guy Grace, director of Security and Emergency Planning for LPS. "So it is crucial we get the security right.”
POE CABLING FOR SYSTEM EXPANSION
“In the past, there were significant challenges that arose when the school district deployed security technology,” said Grace. “Often, the older technology did not evolve with new threats, and as a result, became obsolete.”
LPS’s former access control provider was proprietary and not PoE (Power over Ether- net) compatible. PoE infrastructure results in lower cost, greater flexibility with installation, and overall more functionality than tradition- al wiring. As a result, the school district is able to adjust to and decrease new vulnerabilities.
Grace and his staff were adamant about implementing technology that would provide an integrated approach to a safer school by utilizing PoE to ultimately achieve a full- fledged Physical Security Information Man- agement (PSIM) system. Although DNA Fusion is not generally categorized as a PSIM system, it serves as the primary interface for
all other systems to tie into.
“In wanting to bring this big vision to the
school district, we looked at procedures and technologies that would enhance school secu- rity and improve the learning environment,” said Grace. “One of the most important tiers we wanted to meet was a complete installation of a PoE cabling infrastructure district-wide that would allow us to use non-proprietary systems, which helps us bring the best technol- ogy into the district.”
LPS’S VISION FOR NEW ACCESS CONTROL PROVIDER
As Grace began the vendor selection process for the upgrade, he looked at suppliers that were consistently evolving. This would allow the district to grow alongside their service providers as new features and technologies became available. “Our overall security goal is pretty simple,” said Grace. “We must have quality technology delivering quality results, because we cannot have a successful educa- tional experience without safety and security well taken care of.”
Grace and his team sought an access control provider that could integrate with their chosen technology providers and offer a user-friendly interface that allowed multiple operators to uti- lize the system. After vetting several vendors,
LPS selected Open Options for the project. Open Options’ flagship access control plat- form, DNA Fusion, interfaces with a host of other systems and also has mobile and web applications. Open Options and Mercury Security have worked together for two decades to provide a true open architecture access control solution. Mercury Security is the leading open platform access control hardware provider with over 20 OEM part- ners, the most extensive feature set, and the world’s largest install base with over 3 million controllers. Multiple manufacturers support this hardware platform, which allows the end user a valuable choice in software. Because of Open Options’ commitment to open architec- ture and their numerous third-party technol- ogy integrations, Mercury Security named Open Options one of the company’s first
Platinum Elite Partners.
The transition from LPS’s former access
control solution to DNA Fusion began a few years ago, when LPS closed their campuses for the summer and began installing the Open Options infrastructure. During the transition, the older access control system continued to operate on its server in Information Technol- ogy Services, and will be shut down indefi- nitely as the remaining campuses are convert- ed to DNA Fusion at the end of this May.
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