Beginning Jan. 13, 2020, visitors at Julian, Hatch and Longfellow will be asked to sign-in and present identification, such as a driver’s license, that will be scanned into District 97’s new LobbyGuard visitor management system. LobbyGuard is the same vendor Oak Park and River Forest High School uses to track visitors.
“LobbyGuard is a self-serve kiosk that requires visitors to scan a valid driver’s license prior to obtaining a badge to enter the school,” according to a statement D97 released in November. “Upon entry into the office, visitors will use the touch screen at the kiosk to enter information and scan their license.”
The front office staff will keep whatever form of identification the visitor issues in order to enter the school. Visitors will have to check out before retrieving their ID and exiting the school.
Jim Hackett, D97’s safety and security manager, said in a recent email statement that the new system will allow employees to “quickly and accurately account for who is in our schools and for what purpose, and instantly screen the visitor against the National Sex Offender Registry to ensure they are not committing a criminal act by entering our schools.”
Hackett said the district currently doesn’t have this capability. According to a statement D97 released in November, LobbyGuard will be rolled out as a pilot program at Julian, Hatch and Longfellow for the 2019-20 school year, with all other schools continuing to follow the district’s current procedures as outlined in the Visitor Management Policy.
Hackett said the district selected LobbyGuard “because it is a compact kiosk unit that allows full customization of the questions visitors need to answer.” The district purchased four LobbyGuard Versa machines for the pilot program. Each machine costs $3,000, he said.
“At this time, there is no cost [estimate] of full implementation because this cost is dependent on data gathering during the pilot program,” explained Hackett, who said the district’s Safety and Security Advisory Committee, which discussed the LobbyGuard implementation in November, will analyze data from the pilot program before making a recommendation on full implementation, which would require the approval of the D97 school board.
In its statement, the district said LobbyGuard “does not replace the valuable safety supervision of our school administrative assistants, staff and building principals, who often best know who should and shouldn’t be inside your school.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com