The Mayfield district recently implemented a new security system with promising results.

The Raptor system is a visitor registration system that is used to check school visitors against the sex offenders database or against criminal records before entering the building.

Administrative assistant Toni Shoda is in charge of checking people when they enter the building. “We drop a driver’s license into the little control box that checks the verification and verifies their identity, who they are, and if there’s any issues we need to be concerned of, which would be arrest or perverts or anything like that,” Shoda said.

Shoda said this process can be challenging at times. “The thing that’s the most challenging about it is if we have five or six people coming in at the same time and they have to wait, it takes longer to check one driver’s license over the other, and I have to submit it a second time before it’ll print out an identification tab for them,” Shoda said.

School resource officer Stuart Galicz finds it challenging for a different reason. Galicz said, “It’s challenging because it’s new. It’s like when you get a new phone. It takes you awhile to get used to it, figure out the new methods. It’s not really challenging for people. They just drop their license into a scanner, reads it, prints out a visitor’s permit; but again, I think it’s just challenging because it’s new.”

Despite the challenges that come with a new system, staff remains optimistic that it will positively affect the school. Assistant principal Jane Perry said the system will benefit student safety. “I think it benefits the school in the sense of having that security, and knowing that any person that has come through the main office has been cleared, and that we know where in the building they’re reporting, who they’re going to be with, and that they’ve had a thorough background check,” Perry said.

Galicz said the multiple layers of security will benefit safety in schools. “I think it’s just one more step to assist in making school safer. I don’t think it’s gonna catch all to end all… It’s just one more level to multiple levels of security that they do the best to implement in the school system,” Galicz said.

Perry said the safety aspect of it outweighs the challenges. “Hopefully it just adds that extra layer of confidence and just being secure with who you see going through the hallways and just being assured that we’ve done what we can do to monitor who’s coming in,” Perry said.