Principal Bernhard announced to Ward Melville students that beginning September 21st, students will be required to wear ID tags throughout the school day. Many students were confused as to what purpose the ID tags served. Students thought since the school staff can’t see their faces, they wouldn’t know if a student is actually attending Ward Melville under their mask or if the student is an imposter. There is little controversy over wearing the tags because the staff isn’t checking if students are wearing ID them. 

In reference to the purpose of wearing the tags, Mrs. Giangrande said, “Now that the students are allowed outside in between classes, they want to make sure everybody who comes into the school are the students. They don’t want anybody else that’s not a student coming in.” She also said, “the last couple of years we’ve never had the doors open during the day, so now that they are, we just want to make sure everybody that comes in are students who are supposed to be here.” 

All of this precaution may be for nothing if the staff doesn’t enforce wearing the ID tags. If an intruder walks in with a plastic ID badge, nobody would bat an eye. The tiny fact that the ID tags can face the wrong direction when students are traveling to their next class also undermines the whole process of identifying students. The security guards don’t read our names or see our faces to determine if we are real students. 

If the whole school doesn’t commit to wearing the ID tags for safety purposes, the new policy won’t draw any benefits, but may instead present negatives. The school got rid of the bathroom passes because of COVID-19, as most teachers don’t want a germ brick in their classroom. 

And that leads to my final point. Germs and COVID. My mom hounds me on washing plastic surfaces like my Chromebook and phone every day. We shouldn’t be giving students more plastic surfaces for COVID to latch onto.