It has been brought to my attention that many students do not understand why it is important to wear their student ID while on campus. It is extremely important for me, as the principal of Hagerty High School, to do everything that I can to ensure the safety and security of our campus. While student ID’s may not seem to matter to students, I believe that it is an important security measure as photo ID badges are considered a security industry’s best practice for large facilities. We have over 2,500 people on campus throughout the day, and it is important that emergency personnel and school staff can identify unauthorized visitors as quickly as possible.

With that being said, I do not expect students to always understand the reasons behind certain policies or decisions. They don’t have all the information that is necessary to make these decisions. Nor should they! Passengers in an airport do not know everything that is going on behind the scenes to keep them safe as they travel. If people are always aware of the security measures that are in place, then we would simply be giving the bad guys everything they need to harm us.

Mr. Eastlick has stated in his editorial that we need to choose a direction with lanyards and that we need to either fully commit or fully withdraw. The implementation of ID’s on campus is a process that we are committed to. We will continue to look for ways to utilize ID’s beyond security and would love to hear some ideas from the students!

In conclusion, I believe that every person on campus has a responsibility to keep each other safe. If wearing an ID keeps one person safe, then it is worth doing. I do not want to be punitive with students for a lack of compliance, nor do I want them to comply simply because “I told you so.” I want our students to comply because they believe in a collective responsibility to do everything that they can to keep our campus safe.