Located near Boise, Mountain View welcomed its first students in September, 2003. At 252,000 square-feet and an enrollment of 1,832 students, the four-year school is the fourth major high school to be built in the Meridian School District, the largest in the state of Idaho. The district comprises almost 50 sites, including the four high schools and a fifth planned, plus six middle schools and 30 elementary schools.
School officials felt the new school needed a better way to control after-hours building access than existing mechanical key systems. In a school setting, maintaining a key system can be difficult, and it is too easy for keys to be lost, borrowed or stolen. Based on experience at other schools, Mountain View principal Aaron Maybon noted that lost keys can amount to big expense. "If someone loses a master key, re-keying can cost several thousand dollars, especially with a facility this size and the multiple exits we have. Not only are you re-keying the locks and cylinders, but you need to purchase new keys and pay for the labor involved. It’s been problematic for schools."
High security key systems can help avoid unauthorized duplication, but the only way the school could be sure that no unauthorized individuals were able to enter the school was to move into biometric access control. While mechanical keys are used inside the building, no one can get into the building outside of school hours unless they are authorized.