Name badges are used nationwide as a form of protection and identification, so having them in schools is needed. However, teenagers are a very forgetful bunch the majority of the time, and the way our school runs now is to have students pay five dollars for every single lost ID. This money does not seem like much, but it adds up, and it is bound to happen again… and again. The sums add up and soon it could be twenty dollars, or more- just for simply leaving an ID on the counter top at home, or not being able to find it in your backpack.
There is a benefit to the five dollar fee; it sets in the idea that loosing it will have negative monetary consequences, and possibly pays for the printing. Some families and students however, can’t afford to pay mounting fees. They can pay once, but say the incident is reoccurring- that five dollars could go to buying gas for cars or buying food.
However, to the students, this five dollar fee is shrouded in mystery. “[The ID is] cheap. It’s a cheap little plastic thing. I don’t even know [where the money goes]. I guess our school, but I don’t even know,” Erin Riley a Deer Park sophomore said.
Although most students don’t know where the fee goes, it is needed in printing the new ID.
“It is used, because we have to pay for the card, and we have to pay for the ink, and then over time the more we have to print we have to replace our printers and we have to send our printers off every summer… so, basically at the end of every year we come out pretty much even.” Deer Park High School Assistant Principal Kirk Taylor said.
Because of this, some schools have created the idea of ID replacement stickers. The stickers have all of the information on the students regular ID given out to a student who has lost or forgotten their ID. It costs little to nothing for the student, except being possibly late for class waiting for it to be printed.
“I believe the name badges are important to safety, but they could be just as effective as a cheaper sticker. It works all the same, its just cheaper.” Kennedy Henderson a sophomore said.
However, with these sticker ID’s, students find it extremely easy to just receive these replacements everyday instead with no worry of punishment.
“We did that years ago and it just didn’t work so that’s why, that’s when we started just getting a new ID,” Taylor said.
A good solution to this would be receiving two or three free replacement ID’s and after that the fee is added for every lost ID.
ID’s are a necessity in today’s world and schools, they help them run safely and smoothly, and there would be plenty of dangers that come with not having them; plenty of students look like grown adults and without ID’s who would be able to tell if they belonged in the school? The thought is unnerving, but there is a better way to go about having a lost ID badge then charging a student every single time for one forgotten.