District purchases 5 Raptor check-in systems

The Shawano School Board approved by a 7-2 vote a new security system that will keep better track of which visitors are in the schools during regular hours, but it also made clear to administrators that the system needs to be used across the board, not only the schools that feel like doing it.

The district will be purchasing five Raptor systems — one for each of the schools and one for Shawano Community Education, which is over at Shawano Community Middle School but has its own entrance. Interim Superintendent Kurt Krizan said the entry program checks individual IDs like driver’s licenses.

“A visitor will come in, and they would hand us their ID and put it into a little device that looks like a toaster,” Krizan said. “It would look at that ID and run them through a database and then print out a visitor’s ticket for them with their name and their picture right off of their ID.”

The devices will also check the database whenever someone comes in to pick up a child and see if that person is authorized to do so, according to Krizan.

“It’s another systems check that allows us to look at visitors coming in and out of the building,” Krizan said, noting that Raptor is utilized by 35,000 school districts through the United States.

Krizan pointed out the device would only be utilized during regular school hours when the office is staffed. Evening events would not require visitors to check in, and special events like Veterans Day ceremonies would not require everyone to check in, either, he said.

Board member Alysia Pillsbury saw the Raptor system as an essential part of keeping schools safe and noted that such a system should have been implemented long ago.

“What took us so long to get to this?” Pillsbury said.

Krizan noted the initial funding of $10,000 would be coming out of the second round of Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief funds initiated during the coronavirus pandemic. Following the initial investment, the district will have to pay $750 annually for each of the schools to continue to use the system plus $600 for SCE’s continued use, which Krizan said would come out of the individual budgets.

Krizan said the district’s policy has required any visitors during school hours to sign in and sign out, but many fail to return to the office to check out. With the Raptor system, visitors’ IDs will be held at the office until they return to check out, he said.

The Raptor system will also be used to print passes for students who are tardy, according to Krizan.

Board member John Arens voted in favor of the system, but he said the district’s going to have some problems, pointing out that the adhesive from ID stickers that are put on clothing will likely last five minutes before becoming worthless. He also stressed the importance of making sure the system is mandatory at every school and not used as a convenience.

“It’s easy for an admin to say we need this, but the face of this thing is all administrative assistants,” Arens said. “Not one of the administrators is going to stare that person in the eye at the other end of the table and tell them ‘I need your ID.’ I just want to make sure we’ve vetted this thing to the point that we know that we’re putting people who are a lot less paid as the face of this whole thing.”

Arens also questioned what would happen if the internet went out at a school, preventing the front office from being able to access the database.

“We have a ton of technology at this school that we paid for that doesn’t work,” Arens said. “I trust that you have, or you will, go through these situations, because I don’t want to spend money on something that they decide they’ll use when they want to. What we’re saying is safety and security will be at our leisure. Either we have safety and security, or we don’t.”

Board member Sam Sousek expressed concern that the Raptor system should be used for students, as well. He noted an incident where a student was let in via a door other than the main office; when a staff member questioned it, a department head said: “He’s my student. I can have him in here when I want.”

“Who is going to be enforcing this?” Sousek said. “Who is this going to be protecting?”

Krizan pointed out a Raptor system is not being purchased for the district office because visitors are few to that part of Shawano Community High School. He said any district office visitor who needs to go into the high school would be escorted by someone at the district office to the high school office, where the visitor would need to submit their ID there.

Board member Mart Grams, who voted against purchasing the Raptor system along with Al Pyaskowit, was against the idea of tracking people, suggesting it wouldn’t make an impact on security.

“I just have a real problem with tracking human beings, regardless of what our private businesses do,” Grams said. “When I started looking at this company, they have a pretty good tracking system that can tell when I poop. That’s how good they are. Tell me one school safety issue that’s going to be stopped by this — ‘Oh, I don’t think I’ll shoot anybody today because I had to show my ID.’”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com