School IDs are scanned for many purposes: checking out books in the library, identification checks at school dances, receiving class textbooks and more. Recently, the school has introduced a new program called the “5 star system,” a scanning system for student ID cards which enables ASB, administrators and class officers to track student involvement in school activities. But it has also been tried as an incentive to increase school spirit and attendance at activities like rallies, something that even new scanners cannot change.

Before the rally on March 25, students were notified to bring their ID cards because the school would be scanning the cards of every student who attended. Leadership and ASB wanted to gather a headcount of attendees to determine which class was the most spirited. The hope was that by making class spirit into a competition, more students would attend.

However, when students arrived at the rally, most of them walked right through the doors without being scanned. Later during the rally, scanners were passed around to each class, but  many students still did not get accounted for in the end, leading to inaccurate headcounts. The experience showed the impracticality and ineffectiveness of the new system.

The fact of the matter is that many students are not motivated to attend rallies or to register their presence there when they do attend, regardless of the incentive of class points. The ID card system was doomed from the beginning since there are too many students to scan in too short of a time, resulting in a traffic jam at the doors and wasting precious time.

In addition, some students will always choose to study or do homework rather than attend a rally.

Suddenly implementing a system to scan students at activities will not change the academic nature of the school or make the non-spirited suddenly full of school spirit.

Furthermore, having to carry around an ID card can often be a nuisance. As shown during the last rally, students are not accustomed to carrying their ID cards with them. Although students can check-in by saying their ID number, this causes even more congestion at the doors.

Where do student IDs make sense? One spot is school dances; in this case, the ID cards are used for identification checks to ensure a safe and controlled environment, not to increase attendance. At the Sadie Hawkins dance last month, scanning IDs facilitated a faster check-in process and made for a very efficient system.

In the future, ASB and Leadership hope that they can eventually implement scanners to use once they plan a more productive process for scanning at rallies. They are also planning to use this system to track future ASB and class officer candidates’ student involvement, a great way to monitor an important factor in future student council members.

For now, scanning IDs at rallies will not work. If greater school spirit is the objective, rallies should be built into the school day schedule while keeping tutorial, so that students can both relax and study.

It will take a lot more than an electronic device to break the trend of many students not attending the rallies and others simply not wanting to bother with carrying their IDs at every moment.