New visitor ID system will check for sex offenders
LOWER POTTSGROVE — It was not motivated by the school massacre in Connecticut, but a new electronic security system will be in place at all Pottsgrove School buildings starting Jan. 22.
Pottsgrove Schools Superintendent Shellie Feola said the idea for the new system — which will require all visitors to present identification to be checked against the sex offender database — came from parents.
“During our community feedback meetings we had with parents last year, the subject came up and we decided to research it and see what kind of systems are out there,” Feola said Friday.
The system on which the district settled is called LobbyGuard and, according to its website, is al-
ready in use in schools in Georgia, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Washington and North Carolina, among other places.
“LobbyGuard performs instant background checks against national sexual offender databases and immediately alerts appropriate personnel if a match is made. You can even enter your own customized list of names to keep out known gang members, drug dealers, suspended students, and other unwanted guests,” according to the website.
According to a letter to the community posted on the district website, all visitors will be required to produce a driver’s license or other government-issued ID when visiting the school.
Once a visitor’s identification has been scanned, a photo-ID visitors’ badge will be provided so long as there is no alert in the database.
That badge must be worn at all times while in the building and returned when leaving the building, according to the new policy.
In the event the database finds a “match” to that of a registered sex offender, “the designated staff member will immediately contact the building principal, who will notify the superintendent to determine the next steps,” according to the letter.
If the person listed in the database is the identified parent or guardian of a child in the district, it may be necessary for the indi- vidual to be granted “limited access to the school, while being escorted by school personnel.”
Bags and parcels may be searched as well.
Those who refuse to produce an ID may be directed to leave the school, although school principals may allow limited access “based on their personal understanding of the situation and/or knowledge of the person in question.”
“The entire visitor check-in system should take less than a minute when proper identification is presented and the check-in process may be temporarily suspended at the discretion of the superintendent on certain special event days or when students are not in school,” the letter said.
Feola said there has been no discussion yet about whether a similar system should be used to check for criminal records, gun crime convictions or gun permits.
“I don’t know if there is a system that does that,” she said.
She said in the wake of the Newtown shootings, she did meet with all three police chiefs — West Pottsgrove, Lower Pottsgrove and Upper Pottsgrove — to ensure that all three police departments were familiar with the district’s emergen- cy procedures.
One result of those meetings, Feola said, is the issuing of computerized access cards to all three police departments “so officers can gain access to the buildings whenever they need to,” she said.
Both Pottsgrove High School and Pottsgrove Middle School have “school resources officers” assigned from the Lower Pottsgrove and Upper Pottsgrove police departments, respectively.