Lodi schools begin testing new site security system
In the wake of the tragic shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February, six schools in Lodi Unified School District began testing the Raptor Technology School Site Badging System last week.
Lodi and Ronald E. McNair high schools, Millswood and Delta Sierra middle schools, and Heritage and Lakewood elementary schools are testing the new security technology.
The systems went online on Tuesday, according to Bruce Spalding, principal of Lakewood Elementary School. The pilot program will run for the duration of the 2017-18 school year, and is expected to be implemented throughout the rest of the district next year, he said.
“It was installed last week, but we didn’t want to send anything out until parents got information about the system . ... We didn’t want to surprise them coming into the office, and all of a sudden (we’re) asking them for their ID, and they didn’t know why,” Spalding said. “So far, it’s been a pretty positive response.”
Previously, visitors would simply sign in and out of a book before receiving a visitor’s pass with only their names, he said.
With the Raptor system, visitors put their driver’s licenses or identification cards into a scanner, which collects their information before printing out visitor’s badges on a sticker with their pictures on it, Spalding said, along with the date, time and what part of the campus they plan to visit.
The system checks each visitor on the national sex offender registry and the district’s database of banned visitors, and notifies the school’s principal and resource officer if a visitor is on one of those lists, Spalding said. It can also be used to monitor tardy students
“It takes less than 10 seconds,” Spalding said.
Once a visitor logs out, the system records an electronic record of the time. Anyone who doesn’t check out gets cleared at the end of the day.
It even makes things easy for repeat visitors like volunteers.
“Once you’re in the system, all we have to do is type your name in and it prints a new badge, so that will save time,” Spalding said.