Safety and security is and always will be a major concern for schools around the country. WHS has made strides to do its part in improving safety for its staff and students by implementing a new policy: students and staff are required to wear lanyards with their respective IDs when on campus during school hours.

“We’ve already had a situation where a student was coming into the building that didn’t go here and they didn’t have a lanyard on, so it was very quick, very obvious, you don’t go here…. in a security sense it’s helped,” WHS campus monitor David Flanigan (staff) said.

By implementing this new policy, it allows students to continue to utilize their freedoms and activities in and outside of school, as lanyards provide an easy way to display a student or staff member’s ID.

Kraig Bergner (staff) is the head of safety and security at the district level. Bergner wrote in an email to WHS and Severance High School (SHS) staff members on Aug. 25 that “clear identification of students and staff is an integral part of monitoring and controlling access to our campuses. At the high school level, students have the opportunity to engage off campus for a variety of activities to include, lunch, off-block scheduling, and off-campus educational opportunities.”

Staff and students alike have needed time to adapt to the new policy. Though 67% of students do not like the lanyards according to poll conducted by The Windsor Chronicle, most are receptive to the new policy. Assistant Principal Richard Thomas (staff) said, “I think it’s been great… coming back from lunch seems to be the main thing right now, everybody just remembering to put their IDs back on and everybody has been respectful for the most part.”

Most students have been fully receptive to the new policy, but one major gap that has been seen in the student body is the fact that few students know and understand the reasoning for the policy. Kale Frederick (11) said, “I’m not really sure why this policy was implemented, maybe for safety?”

Like Frederick, many students are unclear as to why this policy was implemented and for many the lanyards are distracting. Additionally, some also believe that the lanyards are not high quality: “They are very cheaply made, a lot of peoples’ (lanyards) are breaking, and they’re not good quality,” Peyton Duran (10) said.

As students and staff adjust to these guidelines, students seem to remember the new expectations more quickly and, for the most part, have been respecting the new guidelines. This policy has been implemented as a way to improve the safety and security for the students of WHS and, ultimatley, should lead to a safer future for Weld RE-4 schools.