By KENNETH DEAN - 8/24/2008

Parents or other visitors will no longer be able to walk onto the campuses of Athens Independent School District and simply stroll the halls. They will now have to show government-issued identification which will be used to see if they are a sex offender or have a criminal background. The reason for taking such action?

Superintendent Fred Hayes said the answer is simple, "the students' and faculty's safety."

Hayes said the district has outfitted all six campuses with Raptor Technologies' V-Soft Visitor Information designed to identify registered sex offenders. Additionally both the middle and high schools will have more control over who walks on and off campus as they install a window near the front doors where visitors must check in. A push button system will give the person manning the window the ability to either allow entry or keep the doors locked to the visitor.

Hayes said the identification program began in Houston several years ago and now is used by about 4,000 schools across the nation.

The system, he said, runs in minutes and checks for criminal backgrounds while specifically targeting sexual crimes and wanted individuals.

Anyone showing up as a sex offender will not be allowed on campus and a message is automatically sent to police if the person attempting to enter the campus is a wanted person.

"Last year we allowed parents to come in and eat lunch with their children and we had people just walking through the public areas of the school and into the student body. That is putting all of our students at jeopardy and we don't want that," he said. "It will cause a little bit of problems, because not everyone will have a state- issued ID and we will have to turn them away until they can provide an ID," he said. He said the cost to the district for the technology to be placed at all six campuses was less than $10,000 total.

Hayes said other proactive measures taken to ensure the safety of the students and faculty included the hiring of a full-time peace officer at the middle school, which is located about three miles from the other campuses and the posting of a link to a sex offender Web site on the school district's Web site. "We just felt that it was a good idea to put an officer there full time so if there were any problems we would already have an officer on the scene," he said. "As for the Web site we just want the community to be aware and we did this for the safety of our students."

Hayes said there will be kinks that have to be worked out and he hopes that everyone understands the district is only trying to protect their children.

"We will face some issues at first, but I think once everyone gets used to this then they will see that the students' safety is our main concern," he said.