Mikaela Rabizadeh editor
Students are required to carry their school IDs at all times as part of a scanning procedure first implemented at the beginning of the school year. If a student is seen outside of a classroom or lingering in the hallways while class is in session, a security guard or administrator may scan the student’s school ID. The central purpose of the program, according to Principal Mark Mead, is to collect information and data.
“Fifty percent of our lists are kids that are repeatedly in the hallways. It’s not a kid going to the bathroom once. If we have this list and we have one kid on there one time, it’s insignificant,” Mead said. “But, if you see a kid’s name over and over and over again, you know you have a concern and you can address it. You can talk to his teachers, his parents, his counselor, with data.”
When the ID scanning program was set in motion August 2018, it supplied student names, but failed to provide necessary aspects for desired data collection, such as date and time. Now that it can store those features, the program can be more effectively executed.
“We started this earlier in the year. It was good, but the effect wasn’t helpful from a data perspective. You’d get a kid’s name, but you wouldn’t know when [the scan] would be. So it’s taken me awhile to figure out which aspect of the program we are using to scan names, but also produce date and time,” Mead said.
Student board member Sean Toobi believes the program is a step in the right direction for the district.
“I think this program is a great plan for not only keeping our halls safe, but also gearing our school district towards utilizing more data-driven decisions,” Toobi said.
Multiple concerns, however, have been raised by students who view the procedure as a disciplinary measure. In fact, many students, including senior Erica Dennis, were led to believe that the policy was another addition to the increased security on campus.
“I understand where administration is coming from in regards to trying to implement that policy, but I think it’s unnecessary considering we already have strict security out front,” Dennis said.
Mead stresses that the procedure is completely harmless and enables the district to “maintain their instructional abilities at the high school.”
“I hope kids just understand that security is just doing their job,” Mead said. “Having your ID scanned is not something to be worried about. There’s no discipline attached to it.”