THE NEED FOR STREAMLINING SECURITY WAS REAL
Located on a beautiful 42-acre campus on the northeast side of Indianapolis, IN, Heritage Christian School is a private, Christian K-12 school serving approximately 1600 students. HCS has invested heavily in both security personnel and systems designed specifically to create a safe and secure environment for students, staff and families. In the spring of 2024, as part of his commitment to consistently evaluate policies, procedures, and personnel, Jim Hunt, Heritage Christian School’s Safety and Security Manager was focused on ways to improve classroom security while reducing the number of different security systems his team was managing on a daily basis. With an existing on-line electronic access control system for 30+ exterior doors, a brass key access control system for the majority of existing interior doors, and keypad/pin-code locks for classroom doors, both Jim and Nathan Beadle, Heritage’s COO, knew they needed to streamline their approach to reduce complexity and increase security throughout their facilities.
GETTING TO ONE SYSTEM WITH PROXESS®
In April of 2024, Drew Everrett, founder of RightPath Security, a Proxess Service Center, reached out to the Heritage Team to discuss Proxess and Jim knew the timing was right. “Before Proxess we had keypad locks on all of our classroom doors. Teachers and staff were sharing codes with students and others, creating the need to weekly change PIN codes on locks by the security team,” recalled Hunt. Worse yet, “Doors were getting propped open and left unlocked. A door left unlocked is a security issue for us,” explained Mitch Duvall, Lead Patrol Officer and Security System Administrator. HCS started with a 6 Lock Proxess Trial through RightPath giving them the unique opportunity to test the Proxess system risk-free for 30 days. The first series of Proxess locks went on a variety of doors including classrooms and offices. “Proxess and RightPath were always professional, spoke openly about the pros and cons, and showed up at every step of the process,” recalled Katie Boling, Intermediate and Middle School Principal. Once Nathan, Jim, Mitch and the rest of the Heritage leadership team experienced the simplicity of the Proxess Digital Masterkey platform for their interior doors, they immediately began to consider bringing all of their existing electronic access control doors and interior doors into the Proxess system. Duvall explained, “We wanted everything down to one system. And we needed key control after years of not knowing where out in the world our brass keys may be.”
PROXESS DELIVERS
With RightPath’s help, Heritage decided to convert all of their existing online electronic access control doors to Proxess and install Proxess locks throughout the interior of the school buildings on campus. With the full Proxess system now in place, the impact is not only benefiting the security team. Teachers, staff and HCS leadership are experiencing the transformational power of Proxess as well. “With Proxess we now know who and when someone is going into a room which is really important to us from a security perspective. We had a situation in a classroom where I needed to know access details due to an event, and now the security team can tell me exactly who accessed the room and when,” Boiling said. Additionally, the Proxess system allows the HCS staff the option of using a secure physical credential or their mobile phone for access to every Proxess door. Boling explained further, “The option of using your card or your phone is a great benefit for our teachers and staff because they get to choose which credential they prefer to use.”
IMPLEMENTING COMPREHENSIVE LOCKDOWN
With both “at the lock” lockdown and vicinity lockdown via a mobile device available from the secure side of the classroom on every Proxess lock, Proxess has revolutionized the way the HCS Security Team thinks about a campus-wide lockdown. “Now with Proxess managing all of our online, exterior doors including our main gate access under one system, we now are able to lock everything down at once while running our lockdown drills,” said Duval. Hunt continued, “With this never before, new Proxess lockdown capability, we are now reviewing and updating our procedures to ensure teachers and students outside during a lockdown drill have a way to get to safety as well.”