Students are required to wear visible identification on their person at all times as of Sept. 2.
“I feel like it’s not stylish and it’s going to ruin all my good outfits, but I don’t really mind it because I can get a cute lanyard,” eighth grader Audrey Martin said.
The IDs, which are issued by the school, contain information about the student: their picture, legal name, grade level and homeroom teacher. It also includes a scantron bar for activities like checking out books from the library and food from the lunch line.
This new policy was adopted after the Florida Department of Education’s standardized safety test, the Florida Safe Schools Assessment Tool, was administered to the district last school year. The assessment “…is designed help school officials identify threats, vulnerabilities, and appropriate safety controls for the schools that they supervise,” according to the official website. After the assessment, information was relayed to the district on how to make each school safer and more secure.
“Unfortunately, we just had another school shooting [in Minneapolis],” principal Burt Clark said. “Not that IDs are necessarily going to prevent it, but … it’s every little tiny thing that we can do to make this place safer for everyone.”
Administration will enforce that students keep their IDs visible so they can identify all students on campus.
“Its intended use is for an adult on campus to immediately identify you as a West Shore student,” School Resource Officer Valerie Butler said. “If you’re obscuring that or prohibiting that from happening in any way, that’s going to create a problem.”
This requirement means that students will not be allowed to leave the ID in their backpack, and should not forget the ID at home. Regularly forgetting the ID or refusing to wear it visibly will result in consequences.
“If you forget it, no big deal,” Clark said. “It happens every now and then, but it doesn’t happen often. The only problem that I see is someone that is habitually not following the procedure. That is going to be an issue, and they’re going to come meet with me.”
This new change in enforced security, along with other new measures — such as bathroom passes being digital and monitored, and the black fence bordering the high school loop — have led to mixed feelings about the ID policy and its place in the school environment.
“It seems recently we have been taking more leaps up in security in this school, so I’m just hoping that it doesn’t get to a point where it ends up becoming suppressive,” sophomore Aiden Cartaghena said.
The need for the ID to be visibly on the student at all times has also led to classroom distraction.
“I think there’s not enough that we can actually do with the IDs that make it a warranted thing to have to wear 24/7 when we’re at school,” senior Emily Marshall said. “The amount of clikity-clackety we get when we’re doing [AP Literature] MCQs now is insane, and it makes it really hard to focus.”
Some students understand why the ID is needed, but have mixed thoughts about its use.
“I can kind of see why you need it, but it’s not going to be fun having to wear them all the time,” eighth grader Hudson Waress said. “Being classified as a number is just not very exciting.”
However, student IDs are not a new concept. Many schools, such as Viera High School and Satellite High School, have already implemented the procedure to enhance school security.
“I was very shocked when I first came here that you guys did not have IDs and lanyards,” science teacher Jessica Wagner said. “In my personal experience, it’s always been very normal to have students wear their IDs and their lanyards constantly.”
Some seniors were seen tying their lanyards together in a circle formation on Friday, Aug. 29, during Power Hour B to showcase their thoughts on the new policy.
“It was almost a peaceful protest of some sort, of how the lanyards are going to affect us throughout the school year,” senior Tristan McLaughlin said. “It’s going to feel like you’re in a big circle of a bunch of people when you put just one lanyard on because it’s such a…weighted thing on your neck.”
