Government Programs May Supplement Security Spending
Schools within the Wake County Public School System — the 15th largest district in the U.S., per the National Center for Education Statistics — were able to individually decide how they wanted to handle visitor access in the past. As a result, locations’ processes varied from tech-based systems to signing in guests using a pen and paper, according to Senior Director of Security Russ Smith.
An external consultant reviewed the Cary, N.C., district’s physical safety practices. and suggested that schools adopt a consistent approach to visitor management. That led school principals, IT team members and other internal stakeholders to vet potential solutions and ultimately select Verkada’s security software, Smith says.
READ THE REVIEW: This Verkada camera offers powerful analytics.
Once the new process is instituted this summer, guests will be buzzed into schools, and front office staff members will scan and enter the visitors’ IDs into the system, which will check names against sex offender registries and other databases.
“The recommendation from the assessor was to use a system that was networked — one we could manipulate to put in domestic violence orders, custody orders and things of that nature. So, if somebody was not supposed to be on campus, it would give us a red flag,” Smith says.
The district likely would have paid for the new visitor management system with local funding, he says, such as a county capital improvement bond that’s earmarked for security needs. However, when administrators learned the state-run North Carolina Center for Safer Schools would be offering grant funding for safety equipment and other expenses, they applied and ultimately received $659,867.
“It was just good timing,” Smith says. “We were moving forward with some of the recommendations from the assessment, the grant came out, and it’s funding 100 percent of it.”