Starting the Monday after fall break, Brown County Schools parents will no longer be allowed to walk their students to their classrooms at the start of their day unless they check in at the office first and receive a badge.
The change, which starts Oct. 15, is part of a new security protocol being implemented across the district during drop-off and pick-up times. School buildings will be locked during those times and all visitors will need to check in through the office.
All schools either have or are in the process of getting buzz-in systems. Visitors press a button to be allowed into the locked building to check in.
Superintendent Laura Hammack presented the plans to the Brown County Schools Board of Trustees Sept. 20. The district is in the process of re-examining school safety plans. Earlier this fall, a team of 50 school and community members started implementing ALICE, which stands for “alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“We’ve really been challenged to refine a lot of our practices,” Hammack told the board.
One of those practices was having school doors open before and after school, allowing for parents to freely come and go during those times. Changing that was recommended through various security assessments.
“It’s hard to talk about this, because it’s changing the climate of an elementary school. … It does just make sense, but it’s a hard pill to swallow,” Hammack said.
Parents or guardians will not be allowed to walk their students to their classrooms unless they sign in at the front office and receive a badge.
“That’s going to really bother some people, because there’s nothing like walking your child to the classroom and giving them a hug and wishing them the best on their day,” she said.
“The door will be closed and you can still walk your child up to the front door, then wish them well and off they would go into class.”
One of the catalysts to this change was that a parent was upset with a teacher and walked into the building to confront the teacher before the start of school. “There was no weapon or anything like that, but it caused us to think we have all of these protocols in place from 8 a.m. until the end of the day, but we really keep open before and after,” Hammack said.
The school board agreed with the change.
“We just can’t, unfortunately, be so open anymore. It only takes one person,” Vice President Carol Bowden said.
“I think it makes sense,” member Stephanie Kritzer said.
Kritzer suggested having older students — particularly in the elementary schools — be in the front office to greet younger students and escort them to their classrooms.
“They have reading buddies (in the schools). That would ease our way in,” Kritzer said.
No official decision was made at the school board meeting regarding that potential program.
Hammack said even preschool students know how to get to their classrooms, but she liked the idea of partnering older and younger students.
Last Wednesday, Hammack met with the building principals about the new plan. A letter was to be sent to families on Monday informing them of the change.
High school changes
Visitors to Brown County High School may have already noticed a change to the sign-in process.
No longer are visitors just required to sign in on a piece of paper when they check into the office. Visitors now sign in using a computer which asks them their name, what staff member they are visiting and how long they intend to stay in the building. Then, they must scan their driver’s license through the machine and receive a badge.
When visitors leave the school, they are instructed to take the sticker badge off and scan it underneath the machine.
The high school is the first to have to have the kiosks, and other schools may get them, too.
“We really like them so far,” Hammack said in an email Sept. 24. “We will be installing one in all of our buildings if this continues to be successful.”
The machines were paid for with money from a bond the district took out earlier this year.
Principal Matt Stark agrees that the machines are working well.
“It’s much more identifiable. It electronically tracks it. It’s not just writing a name. (Through the old system) you can literally write any name down; you can’t write any name down there. It has to identify who you are,” he said.
“We’re continually evaluating security and how we do things.”
He added: “The comment would be, ‘Come on. You guys know me’ — except that in school shootings, they knew everybody. Sandy Hook is a really good example; he (shooter Adam Lanza) was a student there,” Stark said.
Another machine in the front office is going to be used for students to sign in using their student IDs when they arrive late. It also has the capability to print late passes. But that machine is not up and running yet; students still sign in on paper.
Pam Bond, head administrative assistant at the high school, said the response to the new sign-in process from visitors has been positive.
“It’s, ‘Oh this is new. High tech …’ They get it. They understand,” she said.
Bond said the machine is a comfort to her. “I know we have a track on who is in the building, when they are here, when they are not. It’s also an accountability thing. They come in, they sign in and they sign out, so I know when they are leaving,” she said.
Bond said that the machine also makes her feel more at ease because she’s not required to make judgment calls on whether a person can sign in or not just because she knows them personally. The policy will apply to former students who come back to visit, service technicians who are fixing something at the school, parents — everybody who is a visitor.{div}Director of Technology David Phelps said having a list of visitors in the building will also help if there is ever an emergency evacuation. “We would be able to have a list of who we should account for,” he said.
How it works
When a driver’s license is scanned, the machine is connected to a database that does a background check, including looking at the person’s name and address.
It also can scan the district’s “red flag” list, or list of people the district creates who are not allowed on school property.
The person’s information will also be run through the sex offender registry in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
If there are problems confirming a person’s identity with the driver’s license, front office staff can confirm the person’s identity and an exception can be created so they are allowed in the next time they try to sign in.
“If that person were to come back in and scan their ID again, it would just say, ‘OK this person isn’t who we originally thought it was and it’s actually this person,’” Phelps said.
If a person is flagged, an error message will pop up on the screen, but it won’t tell the person they have been pushed back from entering the building.
“The notification will go out to four people in this building, maybe five, that somebody did not pass their check,” Phelps said.
“They (the administrative assistants) would be able to verify if they are who they say they are and can go in and check what passed and what didn’t.”
Phelps said because a visitor has to estimate how long they expect to be in the building when they check in, a notification also will go out when that person exceeds that time.
“Sometimes they (administrative assistants) may know that person actually left and just didn’t sign out properly,” Phelps said.
Hammack said the ALICE leaders will return to the district on Oct. 23 and 24 to do building threat and security assessments. They will also help the district develop an emergency operations plan.{/div}
