2024 Security Vanguard Award Top Project: Critical Collaboration for School Security Success

“I cannot speak to YES Prep’s mindset and motivation relative to Uvalde,” explains Shaun Castillo, President of Preferred Technologies (Pref-Tech). “However, relative to our discussions with customers about tragedies such as Uvalde, we are open, transparent, and straightforward. If we don’t learn from others’ successes and failures, we subject ourselves to unnecessary pain. I believe we are obligated to talk about such incidents with our customers.”

Castillo is quick to point out the level of relationship that obligation requires: “If you are an integrator who simply responds to Requests for Proposals, you are late to the game,” Castillo says. “Go build relationships – even if there are no imminent opportunities with customers. Your opinions on tragedies such as Uvalde can add tremendous value, and the discussions you have with them will build trust and respect. Trust and respect will lead to opportunities.”

Thanks to a 15-year relationship that Castillo and Pref-Tech have cultivated with YES Prep Public Schools, the company successfully implemented robust systems at all three new schools. The collaboration between Pref-Tech and YES Prep is a testament to what can be achieved through dedication, trust, and the prioritization of student safety.

A combination of cutting-edge solutions and a strong, collaborative relationship can create safe spaces in even the most challenging environments. In this case, it has earned Pref-Tech recognition as the 2024 Security Vanguard Project of the Year winner from Security Business, SecurityInfoWatch.com, and Security Technology Executive (STE) magazine.

Security from the Outside in

Despite operating on tight, state-funded, charter budgets, YES Prep prioritizes the safety of its students. The schools are in socioeconomically-challenged areas, where the threat of crime is an ongoing concern. According to Cheris Kotalik, Director of Construction Projects for YES Prep, the school system leverages a Safety and Security Committee – consisting of in-house safety and security teams, administrative staff, Board members, and community partners – that oversees the continuous improvement of safety measures.

“YES Prep Public Schools ensures that all campuses have secure buildings with multi-level physical and electronic security measures,” Kotalik explains. “Our approach starts from the outside in, focusing on the perimeter, school entry points, and classroom access.”

Kotalik says that entry access was given considerable attention. “Systems were chosen to allow us to have continuous control and visibility over entry points at each location,” she explains. “For example, each visitor is directed to a secure vestibule upon arriving from the visitors’ parking area. This is the only designated entry point for visitors, and once inside, the area is secured. Visitors must go through a check-in process, allowing us to continuously control entry into the building electronically.”

Beyond the focus on the entry points of each facility, YES Prep and Pref-Tech crafted key success objectives for the systems, according to Kade Kaaz, a Pref-Tech sales and design pro who was a key part of the project management team. They were:

• Maintain campus and perimeter security.
• Proactively deter threats.
• Enable campus resources to identify, locate, and neutralize threats.
• Provide the ability to modify credential holders' access rights and operator permissions swiftly.
• Provide a user-friendly software experience for non-technical operators.
• Minimize IT resources consumed by the electronic security system to mitigate any disruptions to the learning experience.

Built on the backbone of Genetec Security Center software, YES Prep ensures school perimeters remain secure by implementing comprehensive security measures like gated access control and extensive camera coverage.

“Pref-Tech has influenced the architecture of YES Prep’s Genetec Security Center system to be a unification of all video, access control, intrusion, intercom, and perimeter electronic security components,” Kaaz explains. “The platform hosts all YES Prep campuses and credential holders and provides the wide array of safety and security operators, Campus Directors (DCOs), and resource officers a means to collaborate on maintaining campus security.”

One slight change in generally accepted school security tactics the Pref-Tech and YES Prep agreed upon was the choice to make the security technology – including a combination of Hanwha Vision and Axis cameras, DMP intrusion detectors, Axis video intercoms, and a host of access control hardware from several ASSA ABLOY brands and others – very visible.

“We do not prioritize building aesthetics or low-profile deployments in our security design; in fact, we find often that blatant positioning of security devices serves well to deter threatening activity and promote peace of mind for students, staff, and parents,” Kaaz says. “We are, however, intentional in engineering the security deployment to consume as little IT resources as possible to mitigate disruptions to the classroom learning experience and its associated technologies.”

Critical Door Considerations

As Castillo indicated, none of the many security measures at YES Prep were in direct response to the Uvalde tragedy; however, special attention was paid to mitigate one of Uvalde’s primary security lapses – the constant monitoring of the status of critical doors. Kaaz explained that Pref-Tech has advised or implemented several best practices in this regard:

While not all perimeter doors are equipped with a badge reader/access control functionality, all perimeter doors are monitored via door position sensors configured as uniquely addressable inputs in the Genetec system.

• All monitored doors are configured for highly visible alerts for door-forced and door-held events with very low time thresholds.
• Central lock power supplies are monitored for health status.
• All monitored perimeter and vestibule doors are further equipped with electronic locking hardware sets configured as uniquely addressable outputs in the Genetec system to enable full remote lockdown protocol.
Locks can be equipped with latch bolt monitoring (LBM), which sends an additional input to the Genetec system to verify that the door is in the closed position and the lock is fully engaged.

• All perimeter doors and badge reader-equipped interior doors are associated with a camera stream. Event-to-action macros are written to quickly access video of the associated door in the event of a badge reader use, door-forced, and/or door-held activity at each respective door. Further event-to-actions are written in some cases to send an automatic mass notification for certain threat profiles.

The Road to Uniform School Security Standards

Obviously, YES Prep has made school security a top priority for its staff and students; however, that is unfortunately not always the case on a nationwide basis. Tragedies on school campuses have often prompted widespread discussions among lawmakers, school officials, law enforcement agencies, and public safety experts about the need for uniform, national standards to ensure the safety of students and staff in schools.

“Subject to varying opinions, there is arguably a minimum design standard for all K-12 security deployments  – perimeter security, lockdown, vestibule checkpoints, video surveillance, means of rapid outbound communication, etc.,” Kaaz says.

“When one considers the challenges of securing a large K-12 school district, with its wide range of stakeholders, numerous building structures, and complex operational activities, one can easily become overwhelmed,” Castillo says. “There is no “one size fits all” solution; therefore, I believe organizations such as the Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) are on the right track by providing comprehensive information and best practices for security educational facilities. I encourage security integrators – who have a valuable perspective to help inform those best practices – to get involved.”

The Trusted Advisor Role

Over the past 15 years, Pref-Tech’s role as a trusted advisor has evolved to encompass all of YES Prep’s security needs. This includes Pref-Tech’s IT team, which works closely with YES Prep to advise them on network issues as they relate to their security systems. “Pref-Tech has been an invaluable partner,” Kotalik confirms.

“Pref-Tech makes deep investments into the long-term customer relationship to become intimately familiar with the customer's specific pain surrounding both security and operations,” Kaaz adds. “All organizations have nuanced pain points and challenges that a security integration company should feel obligated to seek out. Once they are accurately identified, the obligation of the security integration company expands to architect systems that meet the baseline tenets of safety and security AND creatively resolve the organization's challenges.”

This role often also includes helping a school collaborate on the search for state, local, and even federal funding.

“We find most educational entities do very well with securing state and local funding,” Castillo says. “That said, many projects we execute with education customers do involve cooperative purchasing contacts, such as Texas DIR, that allow qualified buyers to choose pre-competed products, solutions, and services for their entity in a streamlined fashion.”

Castillo further encourages integrators to involve a customer’s procurement professionals in the sales process. “In our experience, most procurement professionals are highly motivated to buy the products, solutions, and services their organizations want and need,” he says. “We’ve seen procurement professionals come up with very creative buying solutions. If integrators don’t involve the procurement department in the early stages of the sales process, they invite unnecessary risks and obstacles.”

Additionally, the role of a trusted advisor means helping customers sell a security purchase internally. “Provide information, demonstrations, drawings, schedules, market price comparisons, etc. to help your point of contact make a sound business case to buy,” Castillo says. “Do the work required to become a trusted advisor: Show up and serve them; give them advice; use your skills, expertise, and experiences to help them determine how to invest their precious dollars. I bet you will end up with plenty of meaningful, enjoyable, and profitable work.”