News and Information

AISD buys sex offender ID software
Homeland Security $1M grant enables 'Raptor' purchase
By Suzanne Edwards, The Daily Texan

December 6, 2005 – A new security system allows certain schools in Travis County to identify sex offenders on the spot, preventing them from entering the school and notifying authorities. This security technology, known as Raptor, is a software system that checks driver license numbers against a database of registered sex offenders in the main office of a school campus. If the visitor clears the scan, they are provided with a picture I.D. that must be worn at all times.

"This is part of an ongoing effort to make our schools safer," said Dale Whitaker, spokesman for Eanes Independent School District.

The only schools in Eanes Independent School District that have fully implemented the Raptor software system are Eanes Elementary and Westlake High School, and Hill Country Middle School is on the way. It costs approximately $1,500 per school to run the software.

The system has been in place in Eanes Elementary for about a month. Since then, the school has not identified any sex offenders, according to Pamela Cross, a school secretary who uses the software system.

The money that Eanes ISD is using to fund the software system comes from the Travis County School Safety Consortium, an agency formed in light of a roughly $500,000 federal grant from the U.S Department of Education in 2003.

The federal government gave a second grant this month to the safety consortium, bringing its total federal funding to just under $1 million, according to Jo Moss, the consortium coordinator. The safety consortium allotted different amounts of money to each school district in Travis and Williamson counties based on attendance and number of schools in the district. Moss said Austin ISD also has this security system in a few of its schools.

Each district gets to decide how they want to use the money. Round Rock ISD is using the money to build kits for individual classrooms that will assist teachers in evacuation situations, Moss said.

"Schools have not really been active in the emergency-preparedness process," Moss said.

Both Whitaker and Moss recognized that the 2003 federal grant is partially a result of Homeland Security initiatives.

"If you look at all the grant funds there is a huge tie to Homeland Security," Moss said.