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LEBANON, TN – Last summer, Wilson County Schools bought the Raptor system, which scans identification cards such as drivers licenses, green cards and information off passports, to determine whether the visitor is a convicted sex offender.
Steve Spencer, director of safety and emergency management, said the system has been very successful since its introduction at the beginning of the school year.
The system is called the Raptor Visitor Management System and went live at the beginning of this school year,Spencer said.
Raptor will do more than just scan identifications, Spencer said.
Its primary focus is to search the national databases, looking for sex offenders when they enter our schools,Spencer said. It takes the first and last name, as well as the birth date, and scans the databases.
So far this year, the system has not discovered any sex offenders, but there were people with common names and identical birthdates to registered sex offenders.
It just so happened everything was the same, but it gives you the option to look at the photo of the person in question, as well as the photo on the ID and tell if that is the same person,Spencer said.
If it is the same person, the system will send an automatic alert to the administration and the school resource officer to let them know the convicted sex offender has tried to enter the school.
In addition, Raptor officials will call the school and say there is a direct hit, Spencer said.
If it is not the same person, the office staff just has to click no.
If the staff is not sure, the system will give the middle name and more information about the convicted sex offender to help discern whether the person in the office is the offender. The office staff makes that determination.
If approved, the system will print an ID card with the persons photo, name and destination, so school officials can know the person is allowed to be in the school.
The other thing the Raptor does, and we’ve had a lot of success with, is it allows us to put in global alerts,Spencer said. Thats where, if there is a set of parents, and one has lost custody, the one with custody brings the court paperwork, and it is entered into the system. That way, the parent without custody cannot take the child out of school or even eat lunch with them. An alert is issued to the administration and SRO if there is a global alert.
We had [a] situation a couple of weeks ago, where the dad wanted to eat lunch with [his] child. The dad was hesitant about presenting his ID and made excuses. That set off a red flag with the SRO, who ran a check through the Sheriffs Department and found out the dad had outstanding warrants. The SRO made the arrest in the school office.
The Raptor system is also useful on school trips in which a group of parents is going with the students. If the schools have the information in advance, ID badges can be printed out for the parents before the trip.
The system can also be used to print a tardy badge for a high school student who comes to school late. When the attendance is reconciled in the computer, the Raptor system will communicate with the schools Skyward system, which records a students identification number and show them as tardy for that day.
If there is a problem with the Raptor system, Raptor can work with that particular school or the school system to fix the problem. But Spencer was quick to point out that the Raptor company can only get information the school system allows, and not individual student information, except the name and identification number. Social Security numbers are no longer used to identify students, Spencer said.
Spencer said the school system pays an annual service fee to Raptor to use the software.
The software is not only in the schools but also in the central office and the adult high school.
Spencer said there are 17,000 students and 2,500 adults in the school system, and if anything emergency-related arises, there are plans in place to take care of it.
