Raptor is a two-fold system that serves as a visitor management tool for school personnel.  The primary purpose is to positively identify every visitor who enters the campus.  This is to ensure the visitor has legitimate business at the school and that the school has an accurate accounting of who is in the building in case of an emergency.  The system also provides an added security feature that is used to screen visitors against a national sex offender database.

Safety of students is the District’s highest priority. Raptor will provide a consistent system to track visitors and volunteers while keeping away people who present a danger to students and staff.

Yes. Schools need to know who is on the campuses and why they are there. We also need to be able to confirm that an individual has the authority to have access to the student (early pick up, for example). For full legal details, refer to Senate Bill 9.

A campus administrator can meet with the individual and explain the process to them.

When a visitor comes into the school, they will be asked to show a valid form of photo identification (e.g. driver’s license, state-issued ID).  The identification is scanned into Raptor and a self-adhesive ID is printed for the visitor to wear while on the campus.  The “sticker ID” positively identifies the visitor by name and by the photo from their identification source.  As an additional safety precaution, the personal identification is compared against names of registered sex offenders in a database maintained by Raptor Technologies.  The system notifies designated personnel if a positive match is found.

Raptor collects the name, date of birth, photo, and first four digits of the identification number from the ID.  The school retains neither a copy nor a scan of the driver’s license.  No address or other information is obtained or retained with the scan of the ID.

The Raptor system checks against publicly available information only.  The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of schools to ask for identification from visitors and parents when entering a school (Meadows vs. Lake Travis ISD).

Public sex offender database information is used to screen visitors to the campus.  This is NOT a full criminal history background search.  No other information, such as traffic tickets, warrants, felonies, etc., is searched or accessed by school or system personnel.

The data collected is exclusively for the use of the school district.  GPISD does not share this information with any third parties or outside sources.

Raptor uses a Tier 1 data center managed by a national provider that employs military grade security measures for accessing the data center.

Collected data (name, date of birth, photo, and first four digits of the identification number from the ID) remains in the District’s database, which is housed in Raptor’s secure data center, until the District directs Raptor to purge the database.  The information collected in the database will be retained for three years.  This is in accordance with the recommended retention schedule for Visitor Control Registers located under GR1075-22 of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

If a sex offender has a legitimate reason to be on campus (e.g., visiting a legal dependent), and a court order does not prevent them from visiting the child and/or the school, then yes, the law permits them to enter a school. However, such individuals will only be given limited access. GPISD cannot deny access to an individual’s own child. Schools can, however, deny that individual’s access to other students.

To learn more about the Raptor system or about Raptor Technologies, Inc., please visit www.raptorware.com.