School software spots sex offenders

RATHDRUM – Volunteers, parents and even workers who stock vending machines will get carded at Lakeland and Post Falls schools before they’re allowed past the front lobby beginning this fall.

Both school districts have purchased software and equipment to check visitors against sex offender registries from Idaho and 41 other states.

“School districts are trying to provide safe learning environments for their children,” said Ron Schmidt, Lakeland’s assistant superintendent. “This is one more way to ensure that.”

Visitors will be required to present their driver’s license or a state-issued ID at the schools’ front offices. The ID will be scanned by the school secretary and the person’s name and birth date checked against sex offender registries from 42 states. If there’s a match, the person’s picture comes up on a computer screen along with a flashing red message.

Notification that a sex offender is trying to enter the school can be sent to school administrators and even law enforcement via text message.

If a visitor’s name isn’t found on any of the registries, a visitor’s pass sticker including the person’s picture, name and the date will be printed.

Texas-based Raptor Technologies’ visitor registration and tracking system has been purchased for 900 schools nationwide now, said Carol Measom, the company’s marketing director.

Measom said a school in Marble Falls, Texas, discovered two weeks after purchasing the software that the man who regularly stocked the school’s pop machines was a registered sex offender. Other schools reported contract workers hired for school construction and maintenance projects were identified as sex offenders.

“We get sex offender alerts almost daily when school is in,” Measom said. “Most of them are parents. That’s the thing that has surprised us most.”

She said 90 to 95 percent of the sex offenders the software has caught trying to visit or volunteer at schools are parents of students at the school.

Start-up costs for the equipment and first year’s access fee for the sex offender database is $1,824 per school. Each subsequent year, schools have to pay $432 to continue using the software.

Measom said the company needs specific information to match visitors against sex offender registries – like a first and last name and date of birth. Because eight states’ registries, including Oregon’s, aren’t specific enough, Measom said the company hasn’t been able to include their information.

As states improve their registries, Measom said the company plans to add them to the system.

Schmidt said the Lakeland School District purchased the software and equipment for one school last month. Administrators tested the equipment and decided to purchase additional sets for all of the district’s elementaries and both junior high schools.

The district first learned of the software after a presentation by Post Falls Superintendent Jerry Keane at a regional superintendents meeting. The Post Falls district began looking at the software this spring after a parent discovered a Post Falls teacher’s husband was a registered sex offender and that he had visited the school.

“We’re feeling pretty obligated to put on the accelerator on this one,” Keane said, explaining the district’s decision to purchase the software. The district has bought the program to test at three different sites in the district. Volunteers will have to go to one of those sites to be cleared to work in any of the district’s schools.

The Coeur d’Alene School District said this week that they are exploring the software that’s available.

This past school year, the school districts had varying policies on visitors and volunteers. Some only required visitors to sign their name on a log and state the nature of their visit. Some also required visitors to wear a special sticker or badge.

Now that the Post Falls and Lakeland school districts have purchased the software, they’re looking to develop policies to address issues that might arise when a sex offender is identified.

“We have parents that probably are sex offenders,” Keane said. “What do you do about that?”

Schmidt said his district plans to handle parent sex offenders on a case-by-case basis, but that their contact with students would be extremely limited.

As for other visitors who are identified as sex offenders, Schmidt said they won’t be allowed in the building.

“We’ll have them leave the campus,” he said.