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School’s out for summer! But that doesn’t mean the campus is empty—quite the opposite.
During the summer, schools offer various programs and activities that require visitors to be present, such as summer school, sports camps, and facility rentals. This is also the time when schools undergo routine maintenance and even renovations. Contractors providing services such as building repairs or upgrades, HVAC maintenance, and aesthetic changes such as painting, flooring, or other installations means schools see a heavy flow of visitors—even during the summer.
Let’s look at four ways a visitor management system can maintain your school’s safety during the summer months.
1. Ensure the safety of students and staff
Schools are not bereft of staff and students during the summer. School personnel—teachers, maintenance crews, and administrators, for example—are frequently on campus. Students attending summer school or other programs are on campus, as well.
Visitors who come onto school grounds during the summer can pose potential risks to the safety and security of these students and staff. Raptor Visitor Management screens all visitors against the sex offender database of all 50 states as well as any custom databases unique to your district, ensuring that only authorized individuals are allowed onto campus.
2. Better control access to school facilities
If your schools rent out facilities to outside organizations or individuals, having a visitor management system in place enables you to better manage access to your campus’s facilities. Ensuring that only authorized individuals are allowed onto campus can help prevent incidents such as theft or vandalism, protecting school property as well as students and staff.
3. Improved emergency response
In the event of an emergency, schools need to be able to quickly and efficiently account for all individuals on campus, including visitors. Visitor management systems can provide schools with up-to-date information on who is on campus, enabling your personnel to respond more effectively to emergencies and ensure the safety of everyone on campus.
4. Better record keeping
Visitor management systems help schools maintain accurate records of who is on campus at any given time, making it easier to track visitor activity and identify potential security threats. Unlike pen-and-paper systems, Raptor Visitor Management is an efficient, reliable, and—critically—searchable means of keeping visitor records.
Consider this scenario from Lee County Schools, Alabama.
At the end of the school year, school personnel completed a laptop inventory and locked up for the summer. In April the next school year, the district was contacted by someone wanting to unlock two of the school’s laptops—which they’d purchased on eBay.
The laptops had been stolen. The culprit? A contractor they’d hired over the summer.
How do they know? By comparing the name given to the pawn shop against their Raptor Visitor Management records, the school was able to prove the seller had been on campus during the timeframe they could have been stolen.
“We could go back through sign-in sheets, but we’re looking in April at the whole school year. How long would that take? But we have Raptor, so we just typed in the name from the pawn shop, and there he was. Because of Raptor, we were able to put him on our campus between the time when the inventory was taken and then when they were sold.” Heather Norred, Lee County School District
Partner with Raptor for Modern Visitor Management
Visitor management systems are critical for ensuring the safety and security of schools during the summer months. By implementing these systems, schools can better control access to their facilities, screen and monitor all visitors, and improve emergency response and record-keeping.
Speak with one of our school safety software experts to learn how Raptor can modernize your visitor management.
Related Resources
Guide to K-12 Visitor Management
Best Practices for Year-Round Safety
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