Wake has changed the rules for visiting schools. Here’s what you need to know.
Every person visiting a Wake County school — from the food delivery driver to the parent who is a frequent face on campus — will now have to sign in before they’re allowed on campus
Wake County’s new school visitor management system will go live on Wednesday, July 5. Visitors will need to sign into a computer network that will run a background check to see if they’re allowed on campus.
”There’s a culture change and there’s going to be a culture shift,” said Kendrick Scott, Wake County’s new senior director of security.
Why is the change happening?
A security consultant hired by the school system recommended taking steps such as standardizing how all 200 schools handle visitors. The new system comes with new visitor guidelines under development such as requiring visitors to be accompanied while on campus.
Based on the consultant’s recommendations, Wake opted to use a state school safety grant to purchase a new visitor check-in system. Critics such as Republican state Rep. Erin Paré said the district should have used the state funding to get more school resource officers.
The new Verkada visitor management system will replace the individual systems and check-in procedures used by schools.
“It provides a consistent sign-in process across the district,” Scott said at the June meeting of the school board’s safety and security committee. “That’s the main goal we’re trying to solve here is not to have everyone seeing something different every time they go to a different school.”
How do you sign in?
Every school front office will have an iPad mounted on a pole that’s attached to a printer. It will be located where a school employee trained in the system, such as the bookkeeper, data manager, lead secretary and receptionist, can watch the person signing in.
Visitors will need to enter their phone number and bring identification, such as a driver’s license, that the iPad will scan. The list of acceptable forms of identification is still being finalized.
If you forget your identification or don’t want to to show it because you are undocumented, that won’t necessarily be a problem. Scott said school employees can manually enter the information if they know the visitor.
“We’re not trying to worry about if you’ve got documentation,” Scott said. “What we’re trying to worry about is, ‘Do you belong to this child or are allowed to take them home?’”
What does the system do?
Visitors will be checked to see if they’re on a nationwide sex offender registry or on a district database of people who have a trespass, domestic protection or child custody order.
Even if the person regularly visits the school, such as a volunteer, Scott said they still expect the individual to sign into the system.
“We want every person coming to the school to interface with this to run a background on them,” Scott said. “We don’t know what happened to you yesterday or the day before, but this does.”
What happens if you are flagged?
If your name comes up clean, a visitor badge will print out.
If not, an alert will show up on the computer of the school employee monitoring the system. Alerts will also be sent to people chosen by each school, such as the principal, assistant principals and school resource officer.
What if I still have questions?
The district will send information to parents before the first day of classes. It’s July 11 for year-round schools.
Scott said the system’s use at the year-round schools will help them prepare for the start of traditional-calendar schools on Aug. 28
This story was originally published July 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
