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Illinois School Board Journal
September/October 2005

Scanner increases sense of security

by Linda Dawson

Most people assume they will be asked to show a driver's license to write a check, to get on an airplane or to prove their age to buy alcohol. Now schools are finding they can beef up security by asking visitors and volunteers to produce their license.

Will County School District 92 in Lockport went to a license scanning system for all of its buildings about midway through the last school year, according to Superintendent Richard Maier. He has received no complaints about the new system and feels the district is giving parents an extra sense of security.

The system, which District 92 runs on laptop computers in each of its four attendance centers, scans a driver's license and then checks the information against a national database of known child sex offenders. No other information, like parking tickets, or specific information about any crimes is accessed. The system merely alerts office personnel that the person has a record as a child sex offender. As an administrator, Maier said, he has the authority to deny admittance or alert local authorities, depending on what is warranted by the situation.

Once the database has cleared the visitor, the computer prints out a badge that contains the person's name, the reason for the visit, the time in and the expected departure time, in addition to the person's picture from the driver's license. Visitors then wear the badge while they are in the building.

If someone is seen in the cafeteria, for example, but the name badge says they were supposed to be at an activity in the gymnasium on the opposite side of the building, then staff would know to question their activity or alert administration.

In addition, Maier said, the system can be helpful when construction workers need to be in the facility. The badges would not restrict activity, but they would act as an alert to staff if someone is not where they are supposed to be.

The system, he said, also can be set to page the local police department if a name from the registry list tries to enter the building.

Initially, District 92 tried the scanner system in its K-1 attendance center because of some problems with building security, Maier said. Even though visitors had to be buzzed in under the previous system, a man who started acting erratic was able to come into the building. He was later apprehended by police down the street from the school and told authorities he had attended school there and just wanted to visit.

Even though that situation ended well, Maier said, the episode acted as a wake-up call for everyone.

That's when Maier read about the new scanner capabilities in the newspaper and asked the board to appropriate money for a trial system in the K-1 building. Since then, the board has approved systems for its three other buildings at a cost of between $2,100 and $2,500 each.

So far, most visitors have been very willing to have their driver's license scanned, he said. Those who might have left their license in the car are willing to retrieve it for entrance. Those who don't have a license or don't have it with them can be admitted by simply giving their name and birth date. That information can be entered in the computer, which will then search just like it would with the license and will produce a visitor badge. The only difference is that those without a license will have a black silhouette instead of their picture on the badge.

Once a visitor's license has been scanned into the system, Maier said, a visitor will only need to sign in and give their name and birth date the next time. The system will check them from the previous license picture, confirming their status against a registry that is updated every two weeks.

The other advantage of the computerized system is the constant updating of information on the number of parents and visitors in the district's buildings — statistics that districts need to maintain for school improvement plans.

The only drawback, Maier said, is that functions where large numbers of people try to enter the building at once can back up the check-in process. However, in those instances, visitors are asked to sign in and staff check only those who are unfamiliar or acting suspicious.