GISD superintendent provides district safety and security update

An update was provided this week regarding safety and security measures in place at Graham ISD. Among these updates was information regarding an interior door locking system, random intruder detection audits and the silent panic alert system.

GISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse updated the members of the Safety and Security Committee during their meeting Tuesday, May 21. The committee is required to meet three times per school year and this meeting served as their final meeting of the year.

Interior door locks

In April 2023, the GISD Board of Trustees approved a vendor for the installation of a keyless, wireless interior door locking system. Cruse said that project has seen some challenges since being approved.

“That's been a nightmare project. That's all the vendor. It's vendor driven,” he said. “It's my understanding that all the hardware is installed. Now they're going through software installation. Obviously we're not using that this school year. That'll be rolling out next school year. You will have a card, or a (key) fob, is what all the teachers will have.”

Texas School Safety Standards require that school districts keep all exterior doors locked at all times. In September 2022, the board approved the company C&I to install an electronic door access system for the exterior doors of buildings throughout the district at a cost of $299,265.

Texas School Safety Standards do not require the district to implement a policy requiring interior classroom doors to remain locked while students are present. The district made the decision to implement this policy as a best practice regarding student and staff safety.

“I do understand it's cumbersome. We've been doing it for a while now and it's just what we do so nobody really complains. We're doing a good job with it,” Cruse said. “We know that with the electronic doors and the cards and the fobs it would allow you to have an extra card to your rooms so if you need to send a kid to the restroom, they can get back to the classroom. ...That's coming, it is still coming. It just didn't happen near as fast as it should have and I do apologize for that.”

The district has a total of 502 interior doors, with 202 being classroom doors. Paxica Security Group was approved in April 2023 to install the keyless/wireless locking system on the 202 classroom doors throughout the district at a cost of $195,352.

Along with the interior door locking system, Cruse updated the committee on additional security measures added with gates on the Graham High School shop doors and weight room.

“If we don't have that expanded metal then we have to have a separate person, other than the teacher, standing by that door to make sure nobody can come in,” he said. “...If somebody walks up to that expanded metal gate with ill intent with a weapon, what good is the gate? I mean, they can do damage, but they can't just walk in and gain access to the rest of the building and more students so it's mitigating damage. That's what it does. So those have been fully installed and they're operational.”

Committee and school board member Jason Smith said that the school can only do what it's able to help minimize an incident at the school with a potential shooter.

“A lock keeps an honest person honest, the gates will keep an honest person from doing something bad, but we can't keep bad people from doing bad things no matter what,” he said. “We just have to... minimize. That's the tough part.”

Intruder detection audit

In May 2023, the district was notified regarding a random intruder detection audit where corrective action was required by the district on the former building for the Graham Learning Center. The audit was conducted one week after the installation of the electronic door locking system and a door was not entirely closed.

The superintendent said this year the district had no concerns raised with their random intruder detection audit which was completed on all campuses.

“There's a person that houses out of the Region 9 Service Center that really works a dual role for the service center. ...They did all of our audits with zero findings this year. If you recall, last year we had a couple of findings when they visited,” Cruse said. “...We did a really good job this year guys and our staff does a good job with that. ...Part of that is we're doing weekly door sweeps, which means that someone on the campus is checking the exterior doors to make sure they're locking properly. If they do notice that something doesn't lock properly, then we immediately turn that into maintenance.”

Silent panic alert app

Approximately $17.1 million was allocated to the Texas Education Agency for distribution to school districts for the purchase of a silent panic alarm technology. In August 2022, the district announced it was in contract with EdBrix for the SecurityBrix program to use as a silent alarm system.

Following testing of the program, the district moved to another system from Crisis Go and Raptor Technologies which would allow an employee to automatically alert first responders and other school employees in the event of an emergency. That system was utilized by the district for the 2023-2024 school year.

“I know that we've been trained on it. I know that some of the campuses have used it for the drills, not all, but next year they will use it for drills as well,” Cruse said.

The superintendent said substitute teachers are also trained on the app and are required to get a temporary pass when they arrive at the campus.

“When they come in the morning and get their assignment in the office they're going to use their phone to scan and that activates them for that campus that day, which helps them not only be able to get the alert, they can set an alert off,” he said. “Also, it helps us if we have to have a reunification plan they're in the system and we know they're a person to account for.”

Cruse said when it is fully implemented throughout the district any first responder can receive notifications in an emergency situation which will pinpoint where it was set off.

“The app is working where the first (application) we tried to use didn't work within our buildings. This one does work,” Cruse said. “...I've encouraged the principles that even when you do your fire drill (or) any of your drills, use the app so that it allows everybody to practice it. I'm fine if they want to still make announcements across the intercom as a redundant piece, but use the app because if we never use it we won't know how to use it.”