Fox C-6 School District parking lots and buildings should be a little more secure now.
District officials recently finalized agreements to have seven Flock license-plate reading cameras installed at strategic locations throughout the district and to have 28 access controls installed on doors at 14 school buildings.
Installation of the Flock cameras and access controls, which will only allow closed, locked doors to be opened with a key card, was completed in December, Fox officials reported.
“It is another opportunity to enhance security around the district,” Superintendent Paul Fregeau said.
The total cost for the security upgrades was $146,208.24.
Flock
Fox is paying Flock Safety of Atlanta, Ga., $23,500 to install and lease seven cameras for the first year. The district will pay $21,000 each year it continues to use the cameras.
District officials did not say where the cameras would be placed.
“We had talked about it in the past,” Fregeau said of leasing Flock cameras. “It seemed like the time to do that is now.”
Flock Safety formed in 2017, and it has partnered with more than 5,000 communities to create a vast network of cameras that may be accessed by more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, according to Flock’s website, flocksafety.com.
License plate-reading cameras are leased by municipalities, businesses, schools, homeowner associations and law enforcement agencies. Because of how cameras are positioned, images of drivers and passengers are not seen in the feed, just images of vehicles and license plates.
There are more than 30 Flock cameras operating in Jefferson County. Those cameras are leased by either law enforcement agencies or private groups, such as homeowner associations or businesses.
Jefferson County law enforcement agencies that lease cameras and have access to the system include the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the Arnold, Byrnes Mill, Crystal City, Festus and Herculaneum police departments.
Fox Board of Education agreed in October to approve the agreement with Flock Safety.
Access controls
Fox paid Beishir Lock and Security of St. Louis $122,708.24 to install the access controls on doors at nine elementary schools, four middle schools and one high school.
Beishir submitted the lowest of three bids for the controls, board documents said.
JP Prezzavento, chief technology and communication officer, said the access controls were installed on doors that lead to playgrounds or are often used at schools. With the controls in place, doors may only be unlocked with key cards instead of traditional keys.
The access controls will be installed on one door each at Fox, Meramec Heights and Sherwood elementary schools.
The controls were installed on two doors at Guffey, Lone Dell, Simpson, Hodge and Clyde Hamrick elementary schools, Fox, Ridgewood, Seckman and Antonia middle schools and Seckman High School.
Three doors at Rockport Elementary School have access controls now.
“Any time we can provide this increased security for our students and staff that is a win,” Prezzavento said. “We are reducing the number of keys in our building, which is one way to increase safety. If someone leaves and doesn’t give their keys back, that is a vulnerability. When we deactivate someone’s key card access, they are not able to get back into the building.”
The district had budgeted $200,000 to have the access controls installed, but all three bids the district received for the controls were lower, board documents show.
“When I opened that first one, I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness,’” Prezzavento said. “I was excited because it came in under what we had planned. By the time we got to the low bid, we were really excited. I may have planned high. I took the average of a couple of other doors that we had already done, and that is where I pulled my average from. Maybe those were just expensive doors or the cost has gone down.”
Board members approved Beishir’s bid for the controls in August.