Zebra ID Badges Help Schools Secure Campuses

FORT MYERS, Fla.-Lee County Schools in southwest Florida serves 80,000 students in 81 schools, with facilities that encompass a total of 87 separate locations, including schools and administrative sites. More than 11,000 employees keep the district running smoothly. As the district expands, keeping up with security concerns is a top priority of Security Surveillance Supervisor Greg Lindsay, who has overseen security for Lee County Schools for the past 16 years.

As part of an overall effort to consolidate and coordinate security functions among the disparate district locations, Lindsay and his department selected the Topaz Access Control System from GE, which integrates access control, video surveillance, alarm monitoring and photo ID badging in one package. The district chose a dual-sided, full-color Zebra P420i printer to create its employee identification cards.

The cards include a photograph, the employee’s name and department, and a school logo. Lindsay particularly likes the way the printer ribbons are designed, with a black strip at the end, so that less ribbon is used when printing on both sides of the card. Previously, the district sent cards out for printing. Because of the Jessica Lunsford Act, which was signed into law by Florida Governor Jeb Bush last May, any person who enters a school campus must be fingerprinted. The law is named for nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was kidnapped and murdered by a convicted sex offender in Florida.