With school safety at the front of everyone’s mind, our schools are taking measures to keep our children safe.
Tim Cooper, Director of Technology for San Saba ISD, gave a presentation at the school board meeting last week. He updated the board on these three areas of school safety: new check-in for all visitors, security doors, and upgraded phone system.
New Check-in system
Every visitor coming to the school will have their driver’s license scanned. The scan will run a background check for sex offenders. The school will also have the ability to personally enter information on parents so unauthorized family members cannot pick up children if they do not have permission. (ie: custody issues, court orders, etc.) In this case, the ID will automatically be flagged. School personnel running these check-in scanners will have extensive training on what to do in the case of someone’s license not coming back clean. If the visitor’s background check comes back without issues, they will be given a sticker which will act as their permission to be on campus.
The setup fee to implement this in all three campuses is $6,213.00 which includes equipment and the fees for the first year. After that, the cost is $2,250.00 per year.
Security Doors
The company, Guardian, came out and gave an assessment on the doors. Old access panels need to be replaced. To open a door from the inside, a person will now have to purposely go to an emergency sensor and wave underneath it to get the doors to open.
To get into the high school, you go through one door and talk to the secretary through the window. Then, if allowed, you can be buzzed in to go through the second door which lets you enter the school. This new plan will add a second entrance door to the middle school and elementary school for better security.
Quotes for this are still in progress.
VOIP Phone System
This new phone system (VOIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol) is cloud based. This new system will make it easier to be connected to different departments by being transferred instead of having to call a different number depending on who you need to reach. It has the capability of auto attendant (for administration - press one, for high school - press two, etc…). It will also have call recording and voicemail.
This new system will consist of 128 phones,and there will be a phone in every classroom. Because this system is cloud based, the teachers will be able to use an app on their cell phone to call out - as the classroom phone - in case the phones are down and there is an emergency.
The system does support 911 services. With one of the bids provided, if someone calls 911 from the classroom, the 911 operators can tell not only the address from which they are calling, but also the room number where the call originated.
The down side of this new phone system is the school phone number will need to be changed as it is moving to a different carrier and not CTTC. The school, however, will still have internet through CTTC.
Just like so many other things in our economy right now, there is a delay in shipping. The above measures are already approved and will be implemented as soon as possible.
The three Rs - Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic - are extremely important to your school board and school administration. But, above all, they want to keep your precious children safe.