Committee hears plan to expand Raptor access-control use; court orders drive visitor restrictions

The Safety and Security Committee on April 8 discussed expanding use of the Raptor visitor-management system to provide better access control throughout Weston schools and described how court orders and law-enforcement notifications determine visitor restrictions.

Jim explained that Weston already uses Raptor at every school for sign-ins and that the high school’s open-campus student-sign-in process is run with the system. He said the district currently uses a fraction of Raptor’s capabilities and is considering purchasing additional kiosks or tablets mounted at main entrances to track faculty, staff, substitutes and visitors across multiple entry points. "For emergency management purposes... I need to know, and the police department needs to know, who is in that school," Jim said, describing the system’s ability to generate a timestamped roster of who is on campus at a given minute.

Committee members asked about visitors with court orders or criminal histories. Jim said the state police offender-registry unit sends an automated list to the district; Raptor updates automatically and will flag an offender on arrival with a red-screen alert and deny access at the vestibule. He reiterated that restricting campus access typically follows a court order: "None of that happens without a court order from a judge, whether it's a civil court order or a criminal case court order based on domestic violence incident," Jim said.

Captain Joe Miceli added that law enforcement cannot bar people from campus arbitrarily because of civil-rights limits; instead, police act on court orders, protective orders, risk-protection orders and arrests. He said dispatchers push protective-orders and warrants into their CAD system and that SROs and patrol are notified when patrols should be aware that a named individual is not allowed on campus.

Officials also described cross-agency follow-up after domestic incidents: police file reports and notify the Department of Children and Families when children are present; the SRO may notify school counselors so staff can check on affected students. No changes to policy or implementation schedules were approved April 8; staff said they will work with vendors on pricing and bring budget implications back to the committee.