News and Information

School to check visitors against sex offender list
BY JAMIE BRUNK BENTON COUNTY DAILY RECORD
Posted on Tuesday, August 1, 2006

BENTONVILLE, AR — Officials at Bentonville High School plan to use new computer software to check visitors’ names against a national sex offenders registry.

The high school will become the first in Arkansas to use the Visitors Students Or Faculty Tracking software, or V-SOFT, school resource officer Steve Vera said.

The school hasn’t had any problems with registered sex offenders on campus, Vera said, but will use the software to enhance campus security. The high school projects an enrollment this year of almost 2, 900 students in grades 9 through 12.

The school will pay $ 1, 500 for the software and an annual fee of $ 465 for access to a national database.

Visitors always have been required to check in at the front office before going to other parts of the school, but now they will be asked to show a driver’s license or other photo, state-issued identification, Vera said.

The license will be scanned, and the software system will check the person’s name and birth date against a list of reg- istered sex offenders from 47 states.

If the database finds a person with the same name and birthday in the system, it will ask the school employee running the software if the picture in the database matches the person with the driver’s license.

If it is the same person, Vera and other administrators will be notified.

After that, Vera said officials will determine why the person is on campus and verify the conditions of the registration, including whether the person is allowed to be around children of a certain age.

If the visitor is there for a legitimate purpose and there are no special restrictions that prevent him from being on campus, the visitor will be allowed to conduct his business.

If not, the visitor will be asked to leave.

The software also allows the school to create personalized visitor’s badges.

The person’s name, picture and destination will be printed on a sticker identification badge.

“It helps us to identify if the person coming in is who they say they are,” Vera said.

“We’re not here to embarrass people. We’re just trying to control who comes into the building.”

The software allows the school to enter information such as if a parent has a restraining order that prevents that parent from picking up a child from school.