About 20 miles northeast of Battle Creek, Mich. and 30 miles southwest of the state capital of Lansing lies the bucolic city of Olivet, population 1600. Olivet may be small as far as municipalities go, but it knows how to think big when it comes to protecting the safety of the 1250 students enrolled in its three Olivet Community Schools.
That may sound like a large student body for a town its size until you realize that the district serves a geographic area of over 100 square miles and communities that rely on an economy based primarily on farming, light industry, and the area’s two largest employers – the University of Olivet and the schools themselves.
As a participant in the state’s Schools of Choice program, the district can accept pupils from neighboring areas, which make up roughly 33% of the Olivet Community Schools population in addition to the city’s resident students.
Guiding school operations is Superintendent John Mertz. With 33 years of public education experience in Michigan, his career has progressed from teaching to roles such as Director of Instructional Services, Assistant Superintendent, and now Superintendent.
“The interesting thing about being a school superintendent is that there are a number of things I didn’t know were going to come with the job and never received training on,” says Mertz. “And one of the biggest ones is school safety and security.”
He recalls a Saturday night when he was doing some work in his office while his daughter was attending a school event that evening. When he happened to look up at the large video monitors behind him displaying the schools’ camera feeds, he was surprised to see a lot of people coming and going during that hour. “I thought, who are all these people? Where are they going?”
Mertz says when he looked a bit closer, he saw there were kids with backpacks and baseball bats who were all heading to the middle school gym, where they held practice. “I didn’t have any idea how they got in,” he says. “It turns out the coaches had a key that they used to unlock doors whenever they needed to after regular hours.”
He adds that it’s an unfortunate but common fact that many school districts have far more keys in circulation than have been officially issued. “It can be difficult to figure out where the keys are coming from. Are they being shared, copied? For me, that was a huge aha moment. I found myself saying we’ve got to do something about this; we’ve got to make sure we’re controlling who is getting into our buildings, for what purpose, and when.”
That’s what compelled Mertz and the district to push for major improvements in the schools’ safety and security system. But Mertz says that before the district could even consider who to work with and what to purchase and install, his team had to make its case to the schools’ stakeholders – the staff members, the board of education, and parents. “The community needed to understand the rationale that warranted the upgrades. It’s all about communication and transparency.
“The biggest changes we identified meant replacing our outdated and often grainy security cameras with sharper, more advanced units and stepping up the capacity and capabilities of our access control system so we could better schedule and manage access at perimeter doors and for activity spaces. But what was especially crucial was adding digital access control to our classrooms, which was a priority for further enhancing student and teacher safety.”
Mertz adds that prior to deploying advanced cameras and access control, upgrades to fiber connections and wireless networks also had to be made. “So, we started reaching out to security system integrators and experts in access control like ASSA ABLOY to start figuring out what technology was out there that would be the most advantageous for our district. It was quite a journey.”
Ultimately, Mertz says the district issued an RFP. “Along with assessing what we needed and increasing our knowledge of the solutions available, we were also concerned about the kind of partnerships we were going to form with the companies that would be awarded the upgrade project. We talked about the importance of the relationship, reliability, and response time. We wanted companies that could continue to provide support and be accountable if issues arose after the project was done.”
Upon completing their thorough vetting process, Olivet Community Schools ended up choosing People Driven Technology (PDT) of Byron Center, Mich. to be their systems integrator. PDT Account Executive Charlie Booth explains that gaining a full understanding of Olivet Community Schools’ requirements helped narrow the decision to three key solutions and organizations.
“We brought Genetec in and did a demo of their Unified Security Solutions platform that integrates cameras, access control, and analytics to make everything work seamlessly together,” says Booth. At the same time, he started talking with ASSA ABLOY Integrated Solutions Specialist David Hood who then facilitated a demo of the SARGENT IN100 Aperio Wireless Lock.
“We chose the Aperio line because the Olivet classroom doors always needed to be online and communicating with Genetec in case global actions were needed to secure doors, like in a lockdown,” explains Booth. “Having IN100 electronic access control locks at each door means the facilities department now just issues keycards to staff instead of brass keys, making it much easier to manage credentials. For the video surveillance upgrade, we specified state-of-the-art i-PRO cameras.”
Superintendent Mertz says, “The integration of the new cameras and access control solution with the Genetec platform and AI analytics allows us to monitor door activity 24/7. It really gives us a keen understanding of who is in the building and when.” He says that along with ensuring only those with card credentials have access, the system also alerts staff if a door has an issue such as a card reader/lock battery that needs replacing.
Mertz adds, “We also incorporated weapons detection software. We received a grant from the state for ZeroEyes AI Gun Detection. And in a partnership with the City of Olivet, we obtained a grant for our first school resource officer. None of this would have been possible without upgrading our infrastructure, cameras, access control technology, and analytics, nor without the support of our school and community stakeholders.”
Olivet Community Schools’ complement of security technology now features i-PRO cameras district-wide, over 100 SARGENT IN100 Aperio wireless access control locks for classrooms, and the Genetec Security Center unified platform.
“One of the largest challenges Olivet faced was moving away from the fragmented system of the past where there was one platform for video and a separate one for the limited access control system they had,” says Christopher Dunn, Public Sector Account Executive for Genetec. “They needed to be able to harness the power of the technology at the edge that the new cameras offer and utilize it with applications that can detect things like the differences between human beings, vehicles, and potential threats.”
He adds, “Because of how Genetec is structured and integrates so perfectly with other products, we’re able to bring everything into a ‘single pane of glass,’ including analytics. That single pane of glass provides a dashboard that combines video and data feeds from multiple sources into a unified view.” Dunn says that bringing everything together in one platform also eliminates the need for training on multiple systems, which was another highly important priority for Olivet Community Schools.
“ASSA ABLOY takes a curb-to-core approach when working with school districts, starting with the perimeter and then working inwards. Olivet Community Schools has followed that same approach. They have the perimeter protected with access control on every door along with video surveillance, and working inward to offices and classrooms, they now have integrated solutions throughout,” Hood said.
Hood adds that collaborating with People Driven Technology and Genetec has been outstanding. “People Driven Technology understands our solutions and hardware, and they’re certified on our products. That’s made installation and integration with i-PRO, Genetec, and analytics applications a seamless process for Olivet Community Schools.”
“It's all about student safety, staff safety, and community safety,” emphasizes Mertz. “When you have people in your facilities, putting in these extra measures buys extra time. So, heaven forbid, if there ever is an incident, you're prepared for it, ready to react, ready to swing into action with the systems in place that are going to help you do that, including activating an automatic classroom lockdown if necessary.
“When you look at success, it all comes back to the district and to the kids. Now I determine success on whether our kids are safe. Are they happy? Are they healthy? Are they in an environment where they feel comfortable? That's really what it's all about now, especially coming out of Covid. You need to have kids feel like they're in a place where there are trustworthy adults around them, where the building is safe and secure, and where they feel comfortable to learn.”
