Page 95 - Security Today, January/February 2019

"Increasing safety for your school can begin with scanning the licenses."
By Evan Starkey
front office. You should make it as hard as possible for people to not go through the office, sign in on a system and meet the staff.
Training. Your staff can be at their best when they are trained properly and empow- ered to make the decisions they feel are right for your school. It is recommended that you elect for any training that a visitor manage- ment system provider offers. Their profes- sionals are going to know the system through and through. It’ll be easier than trying to figure it out yourself and being frustrated when the settings aren’t the way you want them, or you don’t know what a button is for.
If an alert for a potential sexual offender or an unauthorized parent comes up, what is your staff to do? This might not have been something you have had to address before. Outline the steps to take for certain scenari- os and empower your staff to make judge- ment calls that might come up. It is better to have these types of hard decisions figured out ahead of time, written down, and com- municated to relevant staff members.
Finally, any electronic system, especially one that collects and stores student data, must be secure. To assure data security, school districts require vendor systems to be compliant with The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and it is a benefit to also see that company has signed the Student Privacy Pledge. These are com- mon standards that should be upheld. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology, encryption, firewalls, and private secure bandwidth should be used to maintain highest security standards. It is also important to make sure that the only people with access to identifi- able data are those that need it. This could be those staff members who directly work with the system and the system providers so that they can provide technical support and trou- bleshooting if necessary.
Together, with the use of an electronic visitor management system, proper training and empowering your staff, your school can improve both security and efficiency.
Evan Starkey is the Marketing Manager for Ident-A-Kid.
the details of who they saw. Being able to pull a current photo of those who have signed in for the day can give your staff and School Resource Officer (SRO) a better chance of finding the person that is causing an issue.
Collecting signatures when a student is being dismissed early is important for any visitor management process. Schools can collect signatures on screen from a touch- screen monitor and save signatures to their reports for future reference if needed. This provides another level of accountability and reduces school liability.
All of this information collection leads us to what is certainly one of the most useful features of an electronic visitor management system, and that is the ability to create reports quickly and easily. In the event of an emergency, you might need to know who is still on campus after they have checked-in.
This cuts down the worry and time needed to identify all the people on your campus.
With the use of visitor management sys- tems, your front office can run more effi- ciently by automating the tasks your staff used to do manually. Accurate reports, vol- unteer hour calculations and tardy counts are taken care of as soon as they are logged. An easy-to-use kiosk is a great way to quick- en the sign-in process for your visitors while also allowing for you to provide a welcoming experience and make sure visitors are using your system correctly.
Perhaps the biggest efficiency feature schools can take advantage of with a visitor management system is the ability to integrate with other systems, like School Information Systems (SIS), to significantly cut down the time needed to enter information in. With a secured integration, a school can have their tardies, early releases, student rosters, volun- teer lists and student-parent relationship databases synced at all times.
Building A Policy
Purchasing an electronic system is not the end of improving your visitor management. This is a big change in policy for gaining access to your campus and there is more that goes into a successfully implemented visitor policy than just purchasing a system. Here are three simple things to create a policy that is effective and easy to follow.
Communication. When making a change that can be as big as a new way parents and volunteers need to check-in, you need to tell them. Consider everyone that might be affected by the change and make a list. Send- ing out emails or letter home before making the switch can help against fear of adoption. Let your constituents know what the changes will be, when to expect the new process, why these changes are coming and how they can help.
Doors. There’s something at every school that is used every day and by everyone that is vital to a great visitor management policy: doors. You can take a huge step towards great- er security and safety just by locking down your doors except for the ones that lead to the
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