Your Public Radio > WYPR Archive
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
You are now viewing the WYPR Archive of content news. For the latest from WYPR, visit www.wypr.org.

No Picture ID, No Entrance At Baltimore County Schools

Gwendolyn Glenn
/
wypr

With the shooting that marred Perry Hall High School’s opening day last year still fresh in their memories, Baltimore County school officials have spent nearly $4 million to upgrade the district’s school security systems.

Many schools, such as Chase Elementary on Eastern Avenue, have had their camera systems upgraded.

Visitors still need to be buzzed into the building, but inside, there’s a large, new, flat-screen video monitor mounted on the wall across from the receptionist. There are three such screens in the building where school officials can see activity at the front door of the building and in a few other areas.

“We can watch visitors come from the front door, all the way down the two hallways into the office and we have video of them and their behavior in the office,” said Chase Principal Doug Elmendorf. “What we did previously and before the cameras, was have someone sitting in the hallway welcoming people and putting them in the right direction.”

In addition, a new identification system for visitors, called Raptor, has been installed countywide.

Visitors to all schools and county buildings will have to show a government-issued picture ID. It will be scanned and through the Raptor system, the information will be checked against the national sex offender’s registry. Those who pass will be issued a badge with their name, photo, and the date and time printed on them.

“If an ID is scanned and it does show up on the national sex offender registry, I immediately get a text message,” Elmendorf said.

The county police and Dale Rauenzahn, the district’s school safety and security director, get messages as well. Rauenzahn said the Raptor system worked well during a spring testing period.

“We scanned in 45 thousand visitors last year and we had nine sex offenders identified through that process,” he said.

A visitor who has been cleared once will only have to show a photo ID on subsequent visits. School officials will be able to pull up the visitor’s information and quickly print out a badge. Shannon Harzarik, a technology teacher at Chase said she has always felt safe at school, but she welcomes the new technology.  

“It makes me feel more safe that we have the background checks in place,” Harzarik said. “We have picture IDs, everyone in the office knows who’s in the building and we can cross check it.”

More than 20 school officials got a taste of the Raptor system when they checked in for an advanced training session on it at Rauenzahn’s office. Afterwards, Rauenzahn talked about other new safety measures that include installing security cameras in the 109 schools that did not have them and other upgrades.

We had 13 high schools that did not have buzzer systems. They’ve been installed in preparation for the school year,” he said.

Also this year, all middle and high schools will have school police on site full time. Elementary schools will not, but officers will patrol those buildings.

Rauenzahn said they would “come in and walk the halls, go around the perimeter on any given day, no set schedule, so who knows when they’re going to show up. That’s the beauty of that program,”

In addition, this year, all classroom door locks will have to be in the locked position at all times. But even with the tightened security, Rauenzahn said more needs to be done, such as erecting walls in the 25 schools with open space classes that house four different grades in one room.

“When we have a lock down, all those students have to be moved some distance to get to a secure area where they’ll be safe.”

Rauenzahn said he hopes to secure $2.9 million from the state for additional security upgrades in district schools. He wants to replace numerous analog cameras with digital systems, so police can access schools online during emergencies.

Officials already are searching for a vendor to produce uniform IDs for all students and district employees over the next year and a half.