A Seamless Access
Taking access control to the cloud helps Ohio Parish campus protect staff, students and patrons
- By Monique Merhige
- August 01, 2021
Since 1954, Our Lady of Perpetual
Help Parish has been serving its community
in Grove City, Ohio. Its first
service was celebrated on April 25,
1954, at the Little Theater Off-Broadway
in Grove City and was attended by 90
adults and 32 children. Over the years, the
small church has evolved into a large community,
boasting more than 2,500 families.
Today, the parish is comprised of seven
buildings, which includes the church, preschool,
elementary school, rectory, storage
garage, athletic building and modular classrooms.
The parish grew from around a dozen
visitors daily to now more than 80 people
visiting the church every weekday morning
and more than 500 people visiting over three
separate services each weekend.
The school has grown to host more than
300 students and 50 staff members and volunteers;
with the preschool adding more
than 40 students and staff members to the
campus tally. With 28 exterior doors now
encompassing the fully renovated church,
school, and preschool, the parish knew it was
time for a substantial security upgrade. Our
Lady of Perpetual Help was ready to take its
access control to the cloud and to create a
safer environment for all patrons, staff members,
and students.
Building Access
A main challenge at the parish was being
able to control access at all seven buildings
and provide an environment with improved
personal security for their staff, students, and
patrons. The new system needed to not just
limit access, but also control it. The security
system they had in place consisted of a few
keypads and electric locks on a couple of
doors with no centralized management or
communication.
With an influx of people accessing the
parish and its facilities, the facilities director
and the maintenance/technology specialist
at the parish were ready to do their due diligence
to find the right access control solution.
They were looking for a system that did
not take up a prominent amount of wall
space and did not require power to be run to
every door.
They also wanted to be able to use remote
access technology to monitor and make
changes to the system on the fly without having
a physical presence. The ideal solution
would be a flexible, cloud-based access control
system that required minimal installation
and could be used right out of the box.
With more than 100 hours spent online
researching the various types of access control
systems in the marketplace, there was
one Colorado-based manufacturer that
caught their eye and stood out from the
other access control providers. After careful
consideration and research, the parish
selected the ISONAS™ Pure IP access control
solution for their security upgrade. With this
selection, ISONAS promptly introduced the
parish to one of their local certified independent
security integrators, Systems 28. As a
leading provider of low-voltage integrated
fire and security systems in Ohio, Systems 28
has more than 16 years of experience in
designing and engineering fire alarm, security,
access control and CCTV systems – ultimately
helping make this upgrade a huge
success.
A Match Made in Heaven
The project consisted of installing 24 ISONAS
RC-04 reader controllers with 21
deployed on exterior doors and three on
interior doors in a month’s timeframe. For
this project, Systems 28 partnered with
Mitchell Lock, who was on hand to install
new electric door hardware and electric
strikes.
The parish provided and installed all network
cables for card readers as well as the
network infrastructure, which created a true
team effort. The parish also liked the fact that
an on-site server was not required with the
ISONAS solution. Having a cloud-based
server was critical in their decision-making
process as the parish was looking to manage
access remotely for multiple buildings. In
addition, another deciding factor for them
was that this solution did not require additional
wall space for the reader controller,
creating an easy, cost-effective deployment.
Along with the ISONAS hardware, the
Pure Access software was deployed and the
parish was enthused to use the remote access
capabilities. Pure Access™ is a cloud-based
access control application that provides users
the ability to manage their access control
from anywhere at any time, on any device.
“We especially like the remote access
functionality as it has been great for us to be
able to lock and unlock doors remotely during
regular times and emergency situations
like the global pandemic,” said Kevin Radwanski,
facilities director at the parish.
The future looks bright at the parish as
their expansion plan includes adding on additional
reader-controllers on seven exterior
doors and a few interior doors as well. After
installing the reader controllers, the parish
has more than 200 cardholders that can access
any of the buildings by scanning an ID Badge
for verification. With this added layer of security,
the parish can track who entered each
facility and keep all access points secured day
and night. By doing the proper research and
understanding the true meaning of a cloud-based
access control system, the parish can
have faith that they made the right decision
with this security upgrade.
This article originally appeared in the July / August 2021 issue of Campus Security Today.