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Cameron school visitors to face sex offender background checks
by Jeanne Williams - Telegram

July 22, 2007 – CAMERON - Cameron schools have joined the ranks of 120 other districts in Texas, which require visitors to undergo a sex offender background check before they are allowed to visit a campus.
The Cameron school board adopted the V-Soft Program, a Web-based software application that aids educational facilities in tracking their visitors to help control campus security, as a preventative measure, said Superintendent Rodney Fausett.

“There hasn’t been anything that occurred that would make us think our safety and security is not appropriate or is ineffective,” Fausett said. The district will install the system and train personnel before the opening of school on Aug. 27, Fausett said.

The safe schools technology program was very successful in the Wynona school district, where Fausett served as top administrator before moving to Cameron. The policy of tracking visitors is widely used in many large schools, and now is branching out into smaller districts.

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks along with recent tragedies in learning institutions has increased awareness about safety and security of students and employees, Fausett said.

Cindy De La Rosa, whose daughters attend Cameron Junior High School and C.H. Yoe High School, said “It makes me feel a lot better knowing they are going that extra step to provide security for the kids.”

“You hear about things happening, and a lot of people think that here in Cameron, it can’t happen, but it certainly can,” Mrs. De La Rosa said.

Allan Measom and his wife Carol of Houston, founded RaptorWare Technologies in Houston in November 2002. The Sept. 11 attacks inspired the couple to develop a computer software program to track visitors to public buildings. In case of a disaster, an off-site database identifies those entering and leaving a building. Their software aids public schools in identifying sex offenders who appear at the school, wanting to visit. Today, the company serves about 3,000 schools nationwide.

Any visitor to a school must present a photo ID to front office personnel before their visit, Mrs. Measom said. The staff inserts the card through a scanner, and with the V-Soft program, a search is conducted. Within seconds, front office personnel are notified whether the visitor is a registered sex offender or has been prohibited by the court from visiting a child. Visitors cleared by the system are issued a temporary paper badge with their photo that they must wear while on campus. When they leave the campus they must check out and turn in the badge, she said.

If the system encounters an alert, it automatically dispatches an instant text message to cell phones and pagers of school security officers and administrators that a convicted sex offender is on the premises, Mrs. Measom said.

Karen Eckert, another Rockdale school secretary, said training took about a half-hour, and the procedure to chronicle visitors is fast and easy.

“We know who is in the building at all times,” said Mrs. Eckert, adding that some visitors thought that the log-in was a one-time event and did not understand that they must log-in for each visit.

Rockdale implemented its visitor-tracking system in February after months of research into campus security procedures, said Penny Curry, Rockdale’s assistant superintendent for instruction, after studying the Texas Association of School Boards’ handbook model.

In Rockdale, administrators “were just being responsive to our campus councils and our district councils who wanted assurances that their kids were safe and that we were taking every precaution,” Mrs. Curry said.

Rockdale had in place a criminal history check procedure for “every single person that works with a child,” Mrs. Curry said. Implementing the RaptorWare visitor screening system was “a natural offshoot” from other security measures in place, she said.

The system accepts state driver’s licenses, photo ID cards, foreign IDs, passports and green cards and the system accesses sex offender information from 47 registries.

Since the program started, Rockdale school personnel were alerted to one sex offender and policies and procedures were followed. However, circumstances of the case did not require a police response, she said.

The cost of equipping all four Cameron campuses totaled $7,000, Fausett said. A U.S. Department of Education Title 4 Safe and Drug-Free Schools grant pays for most of the expense, said Fausett, adding that 120 Texas school districts besides Cameron have been enrolled in the visitor tracking system.

Cameron schools already have several security measures in place: cameras are positioned throughout the buildings; students involved in extracurricular activities must undergo random drug testing; and drug-sniffer dogs make unannounced inspections throughout the year, Fausett said.

Rockdale schools are installing security cameras in the junior high school before school starts Aug. 27, which will complete its plan to electronically monitor each campus, officials reported.