Roaming the halls with freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors all around campus. The faces of known and unknown students is the norm with 2700 faces in the halls. With the new semester starting Tuesday, students will be required to wear their IDs  around their necks or on their waist.

With teachers, staff and parents entering school buildings easily be identified with their ID, students now will be distributed with one as well. The students will start receiving their IDs as soon as they are printed and sent to the campus. Administration has been working on this plan since last spring. 

“We are excited about the addition of identification cards to our campus,” principal Eric King said. “My number one and most important job as a campus principal is to ensure the safety of our students every day. This is a step in the right direction for our campus. We wanted to make the best decision for safety and maintain safety during the growth of our campus. There are several steps to maintaining our students’ safety, and identification cards go a long way in the right direction.”

Taking huge steps for safety with this change can even lead to future projects of growth and the safety of the community. 

“A recent legislative house bill has been passed that will go a long way to better our campus security,” King said. “We are going to have more control over who comes in and out of our property as well as we are going to be doing some work on ensuring that all glassed areas are shaded to help guard against people seeing into our school.”

This huge change affects the daily routine of students in that now they must bring their ID to school every day.

“I think the new IDS could be helpful in a way,” sophomore Guy Barker said. “But other kids from different schools that have  IDs, said their school stopped enforcing them after a while. If that would happen at our school, I don’t think having IDs would be a very good idea for the school.”

Students will be required to have a visible ID to enter a class each period.  Lost, stolen, altered, damaged and defaced badges will have to be replaced immediately. Violations for not displaying or possessing a school ID will be a system of warnings, ASD, Saturday School and eventually ISS.

“It will cost $1 for temporary student ID,” associate principal Jamaal Hunnicutt said. “A new student ID will cost $5.”

Some students really do not mind this subtle change for the future of the school.

“I really don’t mind wearing the ID, because I only have four months left,” senior Blake Pena said. “I am worried about losing my ID, so I am going to keep it close and maybe put it in my backpack when I am not at school.”

But some of this change will be good in the eyes of others, investing in safety will help make the community a better place. 

“I think it will be easy to implement,” junior Tony Scurlack said. “We are really the only school around here not wearing IDs. I think it will make the school safer because it will be easy to ID people who walk in without an ID as someone who is not supposed to be here.”