As the school year begins, it may seem easier to know everyone’s name walking through the hallways. Administration is now requiring each student to wear an identification lanyard throughout the entire school day. This requirement hopes to ensure the safety of the student body.

“We had a couple former students in enter the building through the back doors by Willis gym last year and the teacher on supervision did not know them, she did not know if they were students or former students. For safety reasons, we are asking students to wear IDs,” principal Lisa Moore said.

This guideline is not something new to the district or even other surrounding schools. Chisholm Middle School started implementing this rule in the 2016-17 school year, as well as other surrounding schools.

While many students feel that this an inconvenience to them, this is something they will have in their workplace.

“We are probably one of the last high schools in America to require their students to wear IDs. Once you go into the workplace, which many of our students already have jobs, you are wearing IDs at your work force. Whether you are at Newton Medical Center, McDonalds, or Walmart you are wearing a name tag or and ID of some sort,” Moore said.

Name tags throughout the school are not only for student safety but also allow teachers to identify students with more ease.

“Whether it is a fight or any other behavioral issue, we have over 1,000 students and many of our teachers don’t know all of the students, I don’t even know every student,” Moore said. “When students refuse to give their name to adults, students have their ID on and it is easy to identify a student.”

Even though requiring identification is common in surrounding school districts, students still feel that it may be an inconvenience at times and are voicing their opinions.

“Wearing IDs all the time can become can be a little bit of a problem because it is something you can easily lose and I don’t always remember to put it on,” freshman Asha Regier said. “I am also a person who doesn’t like have something around their neck all the time.”

Along with the safety that IDs provide the students, administration also plans to implement ALICE training with students. Staff received training in April 2017.

“Yes, [we are planning on training on students] because we go into an ALICE drill the students need to be trained,” Moore said.