If you’re visiting a Powell school, be sure to take your driver’s license.

Beginning this week, Park County School District No. 1 is using a new electronic sign-in system that requires visitors to scan their licenses.

“The idea is to have a visitor management system that enhances our security and allows us to track and monitor visitors on a much, much more efficient and heightened level,” said Jay Curtis, school district superintendent.

Every Powell school has a secure vestibule that folks enter before going into the building. In that entrance, there’s an electronic kiosk, and you can choose from different options about why you’re there: Visitors, students (arriving late) or early dismissal (for parents who are picking up their child early from school).

Visitors must then scan their driver’s license. After their information comes up on the screen, they have their photo taken.

“Once you check in, that information is sent into the secretary’s desk, and a visitor’s badge will be printed for you,” said Rob McCray, support services coordinator.

If you don’t have a driver’s license, you can use another specific number, such as a phone number.

“The preferred way is with a driver’s license,” McCray said.

Superintendent Curtis said the school district is trying to balance having friendly environments with school security.

Curtis said that initially, he was a little reluctant to require the driver’s license scan.

“But with the state of school security in the country now ... the principals pretty much convinced me it was the right thing to do for our community and schools,” Curtis said.

He said Powell principals believe “they can still maintain that open, friendly environment that’s inviting for parents, yet still provide a level of security for our kids that we can have confidence in and so can the parents.”

The new sign-in system is part of a more comprehensive security plan the district is moving toward, he said.

Over the summer, school administrators underwent ALICE training for what to do if there’s an active shooter in the building. (ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate.)

All employees who work in the schools during the day when students are in the building will undergo the full ALICE training, Curtis said.

“The high school was the first school to undergo the full training, and we have had extremely positive feedback on it thus far,” he said. “We look forward to continuing the training in our middle school and elementary schools.”

‘Not negotiable’

Visitors’ data will be checked against the sex offender registry in all 50 states, McCray said.

“There’s no other criminal information that’s ever accessed — it’s just the sex offender registry,” McCray said.

“... By law, they’re not allowed to be on school grounds,” Curtis added.

If a visitor is flagged, administrators and the school resource officer will be notified within seconds.

Every visitor in Powell schools is required to wear the badge, which includes their name and photo.

“Our people will be trained that if someone is walking around the building and they don’t have a badge or one of our [staff] badges, they will confront them and ask them to return to the office,” Curtis said. “I know how uncomfortable that is for some of our teachers, but it’s the world we live in now.”

If someone refuses to check-in through the new system, they won’t get access, he said.

“It’s not negotiable at this point,” Curtis said. “I think the line in the sand is that if you don’t check in with our system, you don’t get in our building.”

When schools host special events during school hours, such as awards assemblies or Veterans Day ceremonies, visitors won’t be required to get an ID badge. Similarly, the check-in isn’t required for concerts or athletic events.

“For special events, we typically have administrators who are watching people as they come in, and as long as people are going to where they’re supposed to go, I do not foresee a change in that,” Curtis said.

“This is really for the ongoing, day-to-day safety of our kids,” he added.

Curtis said school administrators know they have to live with it for a little while and make some adjustments. If a parent is just dropping off a lunch at the front office and not entering the school, they don’t have to get a visitor badge.

“We are hoping to apply a little bit of common sense,” Curtis said. “We don’t want to become so restrictive that parents don’t want to come to our schools.”

McCray reiterated that the schools want to make sure people feel welcome in the buildings.

“We don’t want to have any inconvenience between them and their kids,” he said.

District leaders researched and selected the new system last summer, before Curtis or McCray were hired.

“It’s a system that we inherited,” Curtis said.

The Clark Elementary School does not have the new electronic sign-in system, but visitors are required to be buzzed in, and there are cameras up, McCray said.

The Support Services Building, which houses the district’s pre-k program and other departments, has a secure vestibule and visitors are required to go through the front office, but it doesn’t have the new electronic system.

“If we feel the need to expand at some point, we will do that,” Curtis said.

As the Powell school district implements new security and safety measures, part of the conversation is whether staff should be allowed to carry weapons in local schools.

On Tuesday evening, the Park County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees will take up the issue publicly for the first time. The regular board meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Central Administration Building.

Most Powell residents and school staff who responded to recent surveys — roughly two out of three people — said they believe schools would be safer if trained staff carried weapons in schools.

Board Chairman Greg Borcher said he was somewhat surprised by the results, especially from the employees.

“… but when you think of what has been in the news about gun violence across our country in the past several months, the various mass shootings, this issue is at the front of people’s minds and possibly may be what has influenced the survey,” Borcher said in an email.

Of the 190 employees who responded to the survey, almost 64 percent said they feel schools would be safer having properly trained armed staff in the building, he said.

“However, only 44 percent of those same people support the Board of Trustees drafting a policy to allow conceal carry in school buildings,” Borcher said.

The district’s community survey drew 633 responses, and of those, 67 percent believe properly trained armed staff would make schools safer. Fifty-nine percent of those same people support the school board drafting a policy allowing trained employees to conceal carry in schools, Borcher said.

During Tuesday’s meeting, the board will discuss the survey results. The meeting is open to the public, “like all school board meetings,” but the board will not take any public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, Borcher said.

“This is our first of several meetings that we will have where we will discuss the possibilities of having an employee concealed carry policy in PCSD1,” he said. “I do believe that before we make any final decisions one way or the other on this issue, we will have at least one if not more public forums where the parents and community members will get a chance to voice their opinions on this issue.”

The board’s decision will not be rushed, he said.

“… we are implementing new security methods at all of our schools, all of the district employees have gone through or will be going through ALICE training in the next month or so,” Borcher said. “Let’s see how these new measures work.

“It might play out that after the training, and the secure entrances to the buildings, the employees feel that a conceal carry policy isn’t needed after all,” Borcher said. “We shall see.”