It’s officially been over a month since the start of the school year, and if there is one thing we all share, it is the bright blue lanyards around our necks. On September 18, Watkins Mill High School began requiring students to wear their student IDs to ensure more robust security within the school.
Implementing the policy will help staff identify WMHS students on campus and rapidly identify any outliers.
Principal Vilma Nájera said, “The IDs [were] something that the leadership council and I discussed prior to [semester one]…then later on in the school year, [the IDs] were going to become a county expectation.” Within the first semester, having visible student IDs will become a county-wide practice.
That is why every morning for the past week, our administrators have stopped us once or twice to ensure everyone entering our school is either a student or staff. The question is not whether this policy can help increase security, but whether it can be enforced long-term and whether it will be worth it.
It is not the first time Watkins Mill has implemented a widespread change in policy for students. Last year, a cell phone policy was introduced within the first week of the school year in order to minimize usage during class time and reduce distractions. However, we’ve all seen how this policy went from being strongly enforced to simply just being a poster of a pyramid labeled 1-4 on the wall. What’s to say this won’t happen with the IDs?
The IDs were a step towards bettering the school’s security. For security and administration, it is quicker to identify who belongs and who doesn’t and allows them to act on this information faster. Senior Jabea Ewane said, “I do believe… it discourages non-Watkins Mill students [who are aware of this rule] from entering Watkins Mill unauthorized.”
If we want to ensure that this policy becomes a norm and not just another policy we sidestep or ignore, then Watkins Mill’s staff must continue encouraging and enforcing it every morning. Will it become tedious? Yes, but as Social Studies teacher Thomas T. Sneddon said, “The objective is to keep you all safe, which is the most important thing, and it’s not a huge sacrifice to just put it [the IDs] on.”
