Bend-La Pine school safety systems expand this fall

A new visitor and volunteer management system will be at each Bend-La Pine school starting this fall.

This system will be new for most middle and high schools in the district. It was implemented at all the elementary schools last year.

The first time a visitor or volunteer goes to a school, they will check in with the office staff using a government-issued ID.

That ID is entered into the Raptor Management System and scanned through a national sexual offender database. Once scanned, the individual will receive a sticker with their name and the location they are going in the school. If that person comes back a different day, they can visit the lobby kiosk, scan their own ID and a badge will print for them.

Visitors and volunteers include anyone who is not staff or students.

“It allows us to know who’s in the school,” district safety coordinator Scott Bojanowski said Monday.

“For example, if we had to evacuate the school with all of our students, staff and any visitors, we would know what visitors are in the school, and we could account for them if there was an emergency, like a fire or something, that would preclude us to having to get everyone out of the school.”

The system is funded by the district’s safety budget. R.E. Jewell Elementary was one of the schools that had the new management system in place last year. Principal Scott Edmondson said the updated check-in process was a quick transition for the school.

“It definitely gives you peace of mind,” Edmondson said. “You know that anybody can come in here, they can come in, they can check in, they can talk, they can be here, but we know they are not going to get down into our learning environment without having officially checked in and being buzzed through. We know exactly who’s in the building and we know who goes through those doors.”

Once entered in to the system the first time at one school, visitors can check in at any school in the district.

Another new feature are the secure lobbies currently in place at six Bend-La Pine schools, with six more schools installing the lobbies this summer. Secure lobbies will be added to other schools throughout the school year.

Visitors can enter the school through the front door, but another set of doors will be locked once the school day starts.

A visitor will enter the main body of the school once they check in with the office and get buzzed in.

“It’s for the community’s safety, really,” Bojanowski said. “Student safety is of course foremost in our minds, but staff as well as visitors that are coming in from the community to visit the schools or volunteers. We want to try to create a safe environment for everybody in the community.”

The money for the secure lobbies comes from the school bond measure passed in May 2017. Installation will take about 18 months. The goal is to have them all installed by January 2020.