Echoing the halls of the high school, bright and early at seven in the morning, one can hear the optimistic calls of teachers, security guards, and administrators: “Badges! Badges! Badges!”
The primary reason for these new badges is maintaining safety in school.
“The number one purpose is safety. We want to make sure that everybody that’s coming into the building, on a constant basis, is supposed to be here. So one of the ways [for] security and staff is to have an identification marker, such as an ID badge. As well as other purposes that they’re going to be used for,” said Toby Elmore, Director of Student Affairs .
Though the main intention of implementing these badges is safety, there are many other elements that may evolve from it.
“Additional uses such as being able to print your information [will be available]. If you go to the library [you will] be able to use ID as a print release. It also gives us the ability to scan your ID which later on […] we’ll be using in the cafeteria, when you purchase lunch and everything else. But it will also be used when you leave a class as a check -in, because we always want to know where our students are,” said Elmore.
The timing of these badges, given that they coincided with other new regulations, have been planned for a long time, starting right before the pandemic.
“The badges are a long time incoming. It has nothing to do with what has been happening recently in the building, or other buildings within the district. [But] it’s very important to have the ID cards… I’d say it’s probably 95% everybody’s on board with it. There are a couple of people that forget it at home or aren’t on board for whatever reason. But it’s not a big deal, it’s not obtrusive, you just wear it around your neck,” said security guard William Downey.
The introduction of badges in Commack was initially met with some resistance, but as the weeks went by they gradually became more accepted.
“In the beginning they were really annoying and I didn’t see the point of wearing them and they would also bother my neck a lot but over time I got used to them,” said senior Kady T.
Overall, it is important to remember that these badges are for safety.
“For everyone that questions having IDs or has a resistance to it, it’s not to control anything. It’s to make sure that from our viewpoint, administratively. My number one job as the director of the dean’s office is to make sure that students and staff and faculty and everybody here is safe. That’s the number one thing every morning when I get to school that’s the one thing on my agenda – how can we be as safe as possible? This is one of the tools we use to increase the safety,” said Elmore.◼️
