Lous Sessinger / The Intelligencer - 4/17/2009
The North Penn School District will be installing a high-tech screening system in its five secondary schools to keep out sex offenders and other unwanted visitors.
The school board on Thursday night approved the purchase of the Raptor Visitor Management system for North Penn High School, Northbridge School and the district's three middle schools.
The first-year cost for the five schools is $7,313.
"They're remarkably inexpensive," said D. Michael Frist, the district's director of business administration.
The school district reviewed five "visitor management systems" and tried out two of them.
"Following the pilot (programs) the Raptor system became the clear choice + as it is easy to install, easy to use and less expensive than the other piloted system," according to the report to the board from John Strobel, the district's manager of support services.
The Raptor system has the ability to register school visitors and track students, staff, volunteers, vendors and contractors in school buildings. It can also print out visitor I.D. badges, student late passes, and temporary IDs for faculty and students.
Advertisement It scans multiple, national sex-offender data bases to alert school security to any registered sex offenders who might try to enter a school. It also can scan data the school district enters into the system regarding child custody court orders, protection from abuse orders and individuals who have been banned from school property.
The Raptor system is used at the North Montco Technical Career Center and Souderton Area High School.
School visitors are asked to produce their driver's license, which is scanned into the system. It checks the various data banks and alerts administrators, security personnel or police if it finds a match.
According to Raptor Tech Inc., the Texas company that makes the system, its units have been installed in 5,300 schools nationwide and have identified 1,100 sex offenders during the last school year.
The machines have a start-up cost of about $1,500, after which schools are charged about $400 annually for updates.