The new ID policy has raised many questions, and the two main ones are: Is the policy making our school safer, and do we need the ID policy? The ID policy is a new improvement to this school that has been implemented to keep the campus secure and students and staff safe. This school year, students are required to keep an ID visible on them during school hours.
During the interview, VHS Principal Mrs. Dean stated that the school only has three doors that have electronic locks on them. In the past, there have been multiple incidents of people who aren’t students or staff entering the school; they all mostly meant no harm, but the problem is that they’re getting in easily and can be a threat. The ID policy can help the school identify if the person is actually a student or staff member. Eventually, Mrs. Dean said she is hoping to get locks that only open with the scanning of IDs on the door.
With the ID policy also comes the struggle of remembering to bring your ID each day, so to really implement the ID policy, forgetting your ID comes with consequences. When students forget their IDs, they get a special Vallivue shirt to wear, and if the number of days without an ID becomes excessive, lunch detentions or other consequences are involved. Mrs. Dean showed us that the first few days, there were multiple pages of names of kids who forgot their IDs, but now that we’ve had the policy for a few weeks, she showed us a page that wasn’t even halfway full, showing that kids have actually been taking to this policy very well.
When asked how the staff is taking to the policy, she said they feel safer and they like it because it helps them get to know the kids’ names much faster. She told us how students are taking the ID policy very well, and there has been very little anger towards it. There have been only three hateful emails that were sent, and Mrs. Dean mentions how the IDs are a great improvement to the school.
When asking the students how they felt about the ID policy, there were mixed reactions. Some saying “Yes, I love it” and some saying “I hate it.” While some had strong opinions most were very neutral and said things like: “Its okay,” “I like it because I don’t have to wear it around my neck,” “It’s not that bad,” “I don’t mind it,” and “It’s easy to follow.”
The new ID policy at Vallivue High School might be a bummer to some, but it’s a game-changer in the long run. Mrs. Dean tells us she is responsible for every single one of the kids in this school and, if there were a lockdown, she wants to make sure all kids are safe. “My goal is to keep my kids safe.”