St. Cloud Area Schools Upgrading Security Systems District-Wide

ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud Area School District will soon be making some changes to security at their buildings.

At Wednesday night’s meeting, the school board approved just under $780,000 worth of security and safety upgrades.

Executive Director of Operations Gary Ganje says the current cameras were last updated in the late 1990s and the door access equipment will soon no longer be supported.

When they were first put in the recording was on a VHS tape. Over the years the DVRs, the recorders, have been replaced with recorders with hard drives. Some of the cameras have been upgraded, but a lot of the infrastructure goes back to the 1990s.

The two-part process includes upgrading security cameras at Apollo High School, North Junior High, South Junior High, and McKinley-ALC as well as new key card door access at all district buildings.

Amy Skaalerud is the executive director of finance and business services for the district. She says the funding is coming from two sources.

Part of it is coming from one-time money from the state that's in the form of what they are calling one-time Safe School supplemental aid. It was part of the last legislative session. Then the remainder is coming from bond proceeds that were left from an issuance in 2015 that funded a number of projects.

The district completed an RFP in the spring of 2018, prior to the completion of Tech High School, which locks down the price of the equipment for a period of five years.

Both safety upgrades are currently installed at Tech High School, Quarryview, and the District Administration Office. The district says they expect the upgrades to begin as soon as possible.