IS THE BISD MAIN BUILDING ON PERMANENT LOCK-DOWN?

From: Drue Brown
Subject: New BISD Administration Building Procedures

Folks,
We have new procedures at the BISD Administration Building. Please remind your employees to bring their BISD badges when coming to the building. It will make their entry much faster. Without a BISD badge, it is necessary for the security officer to run a Raptor background check which takes more time. With your assistance, we can make things go much smoother. Thank you.
Drue

By Juan Montoya
Since early this month, Brownsville Independent School District personnel working at the main building on Price road have been required to adhere to new security measures when attempting to enter the building.
According to the email sent to all supervisory personnel by BISD PIO Drue Brown, unless you have the BISD-issued badges, you might be delayed getting into the building and will require the security guard to perform something called a "Raptor" background check.
The BISD, apparently, adopted the Raptor system which as early as 2010 had 3,700 schools in Texas and 7,000 nationwide participating in the system that requires parents visiting their children to undergo a background check upon arrival to the school.
Raptor summarizes its services as:
"Thousands of schools and community facilities across the country use Raptor’s V-soft visitor management and screening technology to help protect children from sex offenders, domestic dispute offenders and other trespassers. V-soft works in conjunction with law enforcement to add an extra layer of security and keep our kids safe."
But some critics have said that while the mission of protecting children from sex offenders has a broad appeal, domestic dispute charges include a broad range of situations including issues as minor as loud arguments among siblings. Has the BISD administration encounbtered sex offenders walking into the main building? Why would they? There's nothing but adults there, isn't there?
According to Raptor, their background check includes arrest records, which doesn’t indicate conviction or acquittal indicating that the notion of being innocent until proven guilty does not apply here. Below are the records included in a Raptor background check:
# Arrest Records (ARST)
# Administrative Office of the Courts
# Department of Corrections
# County Court
# District Court
# Municipal Court
# District Clerk
# County Clerk
Raptor states that: "To enter, a visitor’s Driver's License or other state issued ID and the Raptor System instantly screens for registered sex offenders in all 50 states and can also screen for individuals with restraining orders, custody issues, suspended or expelled students, known gang members, or for any custom alert."
If the visitor clears, the system prints a badge which is later returned when he or she leaves the building. If not, the system sends instant alerts to designated officials, including administrators and law enforcement, via email and/or text messaging."
Some parents have taken legal action to defend their constitutional right to privacy. However, in September 2010 U.S. the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled that screening for sex offenders does not violate constitutional rights. The court failed to address the fact that Raptor screens for a much larger set of circumstances than sex offenses.
The screening of parents and volunteers for their criminal records flies in the face of numerous cases where teachers, faculty and administrators are being hired around the nation often with violent criminal records. Numerous stories are coming out daily about sex crimes being committed against students. While parents are being forced to reveal their entire history in order to see their own child, teachers are passed through the system.
Sex offenders, some say, do not seek their victims at the BISD administration offices, but rather at the district campuses.