As a student enters the school, they walk up to the security guard with their ID in their pocket. Only after they get it out and hold it toward the guard to scan, do they wonder why the school even scans the students every morning.

This isn’t a current reality in District 156, but that could change next year. MCHS is still thinking through the decision to start having students scan in every day using physical IDs for more security starting next school year.

“So from a scanning perspective, yes, we’ve talked about that,” Rick Rewiako said, “we could begin scanning the kids every morning when you come into the building.”

Scanning in students would provide staff the knowledge of who is and isn’t in the building. If a student is late or going home early they will still scan their ID.

“This way, we’re able to scan you guys in the morning when you come into the building,” Rewiako said, “if you leave the building, you scan out, you come back in the building, you scan in.”

If students don’t bring their ID, they are able to get a temporary one. The temporary one would be a sticker and students would have to have it for that whole day. The amount of temporary IDs would be limited to around five per student, after that they would have to deal with the consequences of being unprepared.

The main reason for having the scanners is to give students a sense of safety during the day. Keeping track of everyone in the building can be helpful in emergency situations.

You realize that getting scanned is actually a good thing, it helps the staff with knowing who is who. You start to feel safer at school because even though it’s a pain to deal with, you don’t complain.