Security & Safety | News

New System Vets Visitors and Volunteers at Florida District

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 07/24/14

Florida's Brevard Public Schools is implementing a new system to manage volunteer and visitor check-in. The district has chosen Companion Corp's KeepnTrack program. Anybody who visits a school presents a state ID, which is run through national and state sex offender registries. Once a visitor is vetted, the system prints an ID card with a name and photo.

The district pulled together a task force with representatives from district security, educational technology and community relations to review the previous method for managing school visitors and chose KeepnTrack for several reasons:

• It's Web-based and the approval process can be performed on a PC, tablet or smartphone;
• Volunteers will no longer need to go through an external fingerprinting process. The new system uses information such as name and date of birth to conduct the background check; and
• Schools will be able to maintain two levels of volunteers; the expense for Level A volunteers (people who go on field trips or have other one-to-one student contact) will be $20 every three years to cover a criminal background check. Level B volunteers won't need to pay, and everybody will go through the sex offender check each time they arrive on campus.

The system also manages student activities such as school entrance and exit, early dismissals and late arrivals. It can track staff arrival and departure as well.

Operations require a driver's license scanner, a badge printer and a USB camera.

The software is also in use by the Russellville School District in Arkansas and Calvert County Public Schools in Maryland, among others.