By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Visible progress continues outside the Little Panthers Preschool and USD 428 District Education Center on the east side of Great Bend. The district will host a Preschool and Kindergarten Pre-Enrollment Fair today from 1-6:30 p.m. at the Great Bend Events Center, 3111 10th Street. Monday night, the board of education took measures to add security to the new facility. Assistant Superintendent John Popp outlined the $34,275 purchase.
"We are going to be putting in about 16 cameras throughout the building," he said. "Most of those are on the preschool side and a bunch of them are on the outside to cover the entrances and exits as well as the playground. We have pretty good coverage on the outside. You can see pretty well in the hallways on the inside."
The district previously used CommLink IT to purchase cameras and software for other buildings and again approved a bid from that company. Popp said a local company is now licensed to sell the Verkada cameras but the CommLink bid came in approximately $14,000 cheaper. Infrastructure is in place to add more cameras if the need arises.
"They have pulled the cabling through every place that our camera person, Cody Cale, has said we need them," Popp said. "We're not going to put cameras in every place he has geared up. He has it ready for maximum coverage. But we're going to put in enough cameras that it's very well covered."
The Verkada cameras carry a price tag of just under $20,000, and the five-year licensing for cameras is just shy of $14,000. Little Panthers Preschool will serve students ages 3-4 years of age and will open in the fall.