by Mary Wilson
Visitors to any Grandview School District buildings will
soon be required to provide identification as the district works to ensure a
safe and secure environment for students and staff.
After reviewing and testing a handful of different
management systems, two vendors were selected for demonstrations with the
district team, which was comprised of representatives from central office
administrators, building level administrators, building secretaries, the IT
department and the public relations coordinator.
“The conversations we have had with our safety team
throughout the district have revolved around the need for further security at
our entrances,” said Superintendent Dr. Kenny Rodrequez. “These discussions
have gone on for the last year or two, and this is the recommendation from the
team.”
Raptor Technologies, or the “gold standard” as Assistant
Superintendent Lori DeAnda referred to the company, has a visitor management
system used by school districts in the Midwest.
“The things we liked about this technology were also things
that the safety committee wanted in the system that we acquired,” said DeAnda.
“Accessing the database was really important and doing that every time a person
comes through the door. What’s true on Tuesday many not necessarily be true on
Wednesday, and this program will show us that.”
The system is customizable to the district’s specific needs,
but overall will offer:
• Screening of every visitor against registered sex offender databases in all 50 states.
• Creation of custom alerts for custody issues, trespassing, etc.
• District-wide reporting for all visitors.
• Visitors’ passes including a photo.
• Tardy slips for late students.
• Expansion capabilities for student attendance, volunteer tracking, and emergency management.
• Screening of every visitor against registered sex offender databases in all 50 states.
• Creation of custom alerts for custody issues, trespassing, etc.
• District-wide reporting for all visitors.
• Visitors’ passes including a photo.
• Tardy slips for late students.
• Expansion capabilities for student attendance, volunteer tracking, and emergency management.
“We also appreciated the ease in which the system could be
implemented,” said DeAnda. “Training should take less than an hour at each
building site.”
Upon entering a district building, visitors will be asked to
present an ID such as a driver’s license, which can either be scanned or
manually entered into the system. If a parent or guardian for any reason does
not have a US government-issued ID, the school staff member can use any form of
identification and manually enter the person’s name into the Raptor system. The
Raptor system will check to ensure that registered sex offenders are not
entering school campuses without staff’s knowledge. The Raptor system checks
the visitor's name and date of birth for comparison with a national database of
registered sex offenders. The registered sex offender database is the only
official database checked by the Raptor system. No other data from the ID is
gathered or recorded and the information is not shared with any outside agency.
Once entry to the school building is approved, Raptor will
issue a badge that identifies the visitor, the date, and the purpose of their
visit. A visitor’s badge will not be necessary for those who visit the schools
simply to drop off an item in the office or pick up paperwork.
“The system will be a little different in some ways, and
very similar in others, to what we’ve done in the past,” said Rodrequez. “While
we know that there may be some concerns and challenges, we think that at the
end of the day, this will ensure a safer environment for our district.”
The implementation of the Raptor visitor management system began
at CAIR and Central Office on January 13, with the rest of the district sites
seeing the new system beginning on January 22.
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