Kāwhia Primary School

Leanne Apiti, Kāwhia Primary School Principal, loves how Gallagher has saved the school money and made her life as the security manager easier.

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Leanne Apiti knows the Kāwhia community like the back of her hand.

As Principal of the small seaside town’s primary school since 2009, she and her staff have taught generations of local children and formed strong relationships with their families.

Kāwhia Primary School is a precious resource for this community on the Waikato’s west coast. It is a place for learning, and for passing on local knowledge, histories, traditions, and language.

Ensuring her school is safe and secure is one of the many improvements led by Whaea Apiti, as she is known by her pupils.

The original school block was built in 1922 and is now used as a classroom. Today, the school has an office block, two classrooms, a Māori medium class, and an Early Childhood Center filling the grounds, alongside a generous field complete with sunflowers and an impressive potato patch.

In 2020, Leanne jumped at the opportunity to upgrade the school’s security system when some Ministry of Education funding became available. Frustrations with the legacy alarm system came to a head after repeated alarm faults, service fees, and false guard callouts racked up huge bills for the school.

“We were having real problems with our security system, getting charged a lot. If there was a power cut, we had to replace the battery and pay for someone to come and fix it,” says Leanne. “We knew the system was getting old and we didn’t want to upgrade it because it was going to create more of a headache.”

If a community group wanted to use the school grounds Leanne had to come down to the school herself and unlock it for them, or hand over the keys.

An email from Gallagher about its new cloud-based security system arrived at the perfect time. “I didn’t have to go far to find a solution. Gallagher is local and understands our community,” says Leanne.

The app-based system means that Leanne can now control Kāwhia School’s security from anywhere, at any time. Using her smartphone, she can arm and disarm the security system, manage alarms, and add or remove users.

“The teachers love it. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for people to use the school. I liked the option that you can choose to add people and grant them access to the security system and then you can take them off whenever you want to.”

“Other schools should consider Gallagher’s security solution. I am a person who uses my mobile all the time, so it just made sense to me. I wanted a system I could control from anywhere.”


Leanne Apiti, Principal, Kāwhia Primary School

This approach means no more retrieving keys from past staff members, and if a community group or adult learning class need to use the school, Leanne can grant temporary door access via the Gallagher SMB app. “I can give it to anyone because I can actually see who has accessed the school from home.”

Leanne also loves how flexible the solution is: “We have a builder doing some work on just one of our buildings, so I have given him access to that area only. I can see when he’s locked the door at the end of the day without having to come down and physically check.”

“I’m a person who uses my mobile all the time, so the Gallagher security solution just made sense to me. I wanted a system I could control from home if I needed to.”

Cloud-based technology means the security system will always perform at its best with regular software updates, including new features and security updates.

This is a school prepared for the future. Leanne Apiti’s progressive vision has also led to solar panels providing 100% sustainable energy, the installation of a tank to catch rainwater and a filtration system for that water to go back and feed the school.

We look forward to hearing about the successes of its students under the expert guidance of their forward-thinking Principal.

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