The Role Name Tags Play in Improving Visitor Management in Schools

Over the last few years, school violence and campus tragedies have increased greatly. School administrators are constantly looking for ways to ensure the security and safety of students, faculty, and staff. But the school is a busy place and other people enter the doors each day, including parents, vendors, contractors, substitute teachers, and teacher aids.

Most schools today provide students and faculty with photo ID name badges to increase school security. But what about managing visitors? What good is it if you provide staff and students with photo ID name tags, but don’t actively do something about improving visitor management?

What is Visitor Management in the School Setting?

The definition of visitor management is the process of monitoring access and locations of non-employee, non-student individuals who visit the school facility or building. Good management practices mean accountability for the person responsible for the visitor, and the person visiting. Visitor name tags provide a visual identification for anyone who is authorized to be on your campus or in your building temporarily.

Using generic sticky name tags or a simple visitor logbook as your entire visitor management system, is taking an additional security risk. It takes a huge risk every time a visitor enters your school. These antiquated visitor management systems are simple and inexpensive. They may have had their space at one time, for the short run. But for the long run, visitor management should be an important part of your identification solution for a school.

Visual ID Solutions

Your school should provide a source of visual identification for visitors. If you don’t you are potentially creating a huge security gap. Your staff, faculty, and students should be wearing photo Id name badges that make identification quick and easy. Plus there are situations where they provide a quick ID. For visitors, it’s not reasonable or practical to try to create photo ID name badges, especially for one-time visits. But you can improve security by providing visitors with a visual ID, which includes your school’s mascot or logo. The summer months are the perfect time to reevaluate your facility’s visitor management processes and make improvements.

How to Choose a Visual Visitor Management Solution for your School

Each school setting is unique and need custom visitor management solutions. There are plenty of options to choose from for managing visitors who enter and exit an educational facility. Before investing funds into a new visitor management system, you’ll want to do a bit of research to find the solution that works best for your school. Starting with a couple of questions can be helpful for helping you build your visitor management solution.

How many visitors does your facility see in a typical week? Having a good idea of how many visitors enter and exit your building(s) on a typical day and week can help you plan a solid visitor management solution. It can help you determine the type of name badge you want to use as well as how many you may need to purchase.

How many check-in stations are on your campus? If you just have one visitor check-in location, you can opt for a simpler management solution. All of your visitors can check in and check out at the same location and grab a visual identification when they login and return it when they log out. However, if you have multiple check-in locations, you’ll need a more complex system for tracking visitors.

Visitor Name Badge Design

Including your school’s logo on a visitor name badge is a good idea. This creates a consistent look for your school by adding the full-color logo. Obviously, you won’t be putting the visitor’s names on the name tags, but you do have options. For example, you may just print all of them with a prominent VISITOR label. Depending on the number of check-in locations and your overall setup, you may want to include visitor numbers on the name badges as well. This can be a useful strategy for some visitor management systems.

Some school settings may necessitate the use of visitor names. If placing visitors’ names on the name badge would be useful in your setting or work best with your visitor management solution, then you may want to choose one of our reusable name tag designs. They also allow you to incorporate your school’s logo or other identifier into the design, but also provide a space to place the visitor’s name. There are numerous reusable name badge styles to choose from, including:

• Write-on reusable name badge with full-color logo
• Reusable window name tags
• Full-color logo reusable name badge with plastic cover

Let Name Tag Pros Help!

Whether you know exactly what you want and are ready to order, or you need some expert guidance, give Name Tag Pros a call! We’ll be happy to help you find the perfect, most practical visitor management solution and visible ID for your school.