Principals can choose who will be on the list of notified administrators, Scott said. If the visitor is flagged, a collection of school employees will be notified, likely via text message, and the visitor will not be given a pass to enter the building. If the visitor passes the check, they will get a printed visitor sticker to wear in the building. Software will then run a background check on the visitor. This upcoming school year, visitors to all Wake County schools and two system administration buildings will be required to sign in on an iPad and create an account for the school containing information about them.

But when they sign in, this thing will alert us to the fact that that person is not supposed to be on campus.' 'The person working the desk may not know that a person is not allowed to be on there. 'What we're trying to accomplish here is consistency across the district,' said Wake County Public School System Office of Security Senior Director Russ Smith. They're being implemented at the same time school threats and public mass shootings are rising nationwide and while the school district plans five more physical security upgrades that it's keeping confidential. The visitor management system and visitor rules are part of the school district's response to a 2019 security audit of its schools. The software supports faster searches and more accessible data that can be easily exported into shareable formats. Verkada documents all visitor data, so administrators can search visitor data and pull specific records, including a photo, documents and other information.

That covers technical support for the project, while the software Biztec is using comes from California-based Verkada. The Wake County Board of Education approved in April a three-year contract with West Virginia-based Biztec for the project, costing $532,000. All visitors to the school will need to be screened in the new system, which checks for recent custody orders, protection orders and sex offender registries.

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