Following the Uvalde shooting on May 24, 2022, the Fort Stockton ISD made security upgrades an urgent priority with the placement of ballistic film at all student campuses, an increase to five school resource officers, and the approval of the Guardian plan.

The Fort Stockton ISD School Board furthered the district’s effort to increase security at all student-attended campuses on Jan. 17 at a special meeting.

The board approved the purchase of door sensors for all exterior entrances and exits at six campuses (Apache, Alamo, intermediate, middle school, high school, Butz) and card reader systems.

The deal, which cost the district $620,249.54, includes a 10-year licensing agreement with Verkada that enables the district to replace equipment if needed during the span at no additional cost.

“There’s going to be certain doors you can come in, but all the other doors will have censors to let the administrators know that a door is open,” said Gil-Rey Madrid, Fort Stockton ISD Assistant Superintendent of Operations & Federal Programs. “Even if a door doesn’t have access control, it’ll let them know it’s not secure.” Originally, the district was targeting the beginning of next school year for installation of the equipment. That timeline was minimized due to Verkada’s inventory and timeliness with the entire installation process – one of the determining factors in choosing Verkada over the other vendor in con- sideration in Lubbockbased Guardian Security Solutions.

The installation of the equipment will begin before the end of February according to Roy Alvarado, FSISD Assistant Superintendent of CTE, Technology, & Dual Credit.

“One of the things that was always important to us was the timeline,” Alvarado said at Tuesday’s meeting. “They’ll process that inventory right away. It is in stock. They can get it to us within a week and the installation process once everything has arrived within the four weeks has been able to start with boots on the ground doing the installation.”

Bond projects set into motion The upcoming Fort Stockton ISD bond projects took an initial step forward on Jan. 9 at the district’s special school board meeting. The FSISD School Board approved an architect firm for the bond projects, which will be paid for via funds that were approved by voters in the Nov. 8 election.

Fort Worth-based VLK Architects was selected for the bond projects within the district.

“We focus almost 100% on education. Our firm is based on building long-term clients and relationships,” VLK Architects Managing Partner Todd Lien said at last week’s meeting. “We have a wide range of experience, and we want to get you the best projects for the money that you have.”

VLK Architects provide their services to school districts across the state, including the recent Pecos ISD bond projects.

The approval of the architect firm allows the Fort Stockton ISD to advertise for a construction manager for the bond projects.

“This is the resolution that was drafted in conjunction with our attorneys, which is allowing us to advertise now that we have architects for a construction manager at large,” FSISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora said. “ If everything goes well here at our board meeting at the end of the month, we can come forward with the different construction managers that want to take on our projects. Ultimately, the decision is going to come down to the board to decide who it is that they want to go with based off of the advertisement.”

Zamora explained that once a construction manager is chosen, the school board will still have complete control over the bond projects and if/when they’ll be completed.

“The entire process is put in a position where we are not locking in,” he said. “When they (construction manager) say, “we are going to build a fieldhouse and this is how much it’s going to cost, we hope to come in under.” We again have the opportunity to say it doesn’t sound right to us. But if it does, it is guaranteed it will be no more than this amount. Then we go project by project.

“We have a timeline that’s already laid out. Some of them are already underway. The security is at the front.”