School District U-46 is starting a new student ID scanning system for all high school students Monday as it heads into the new school year.
District officials said the system will require all high school students to scan IDs during morning entry, before lunch periods and when they go to the library. Attendance will still be taken by teachers before classes start.
Students will scan their physical school ID or a digital copy of their ID from their phones or Chromebooks as they enter the building each morning and again during when they go to lunch or library. Employees will be stationed at designated scanning points to assist with and monitor the process.
No scanning will be required for leaving at the usual end of the school day. If students have to leave a campus early, they must scan their physical or digital ID to do so.
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U-46 Executive Director of High Schools William Johnson said U-46 is putting the program in place because it’s important to have accurate accountability of who is in the building and where they are at all times.
The system was piloted during the 2024 – 2025 school year at Streamwood High School. Johnson said that at Streamwood, adding scans for lunch periods did not lead to any bottlenecks of students waiting to get into the cafeteria.
Officials said lunches will remain free for all students across all grade levels this coming school year. At all schools, students scan their IDs after getting food so the district can keep track of how many meals have been served.
“Using two scanners, we organized the line to ensure that scanning is quick and efficient. Students had to wait a minimal amount of time to enter the cafeteria,” Streamwood Principal Paige Moran said. “Additionally, because of scanning at the door, students grew accustomed to the setup and arrived with their IDs out and ready to be scanned. The consistent routine allowed for scanning to be efficient and also ensured safety.”
Johnson said that during lunch, it is very common for students to get extra help from their teachers, go to the library or participate in an additional activity.
“In order to ensure we have an accurate record of where all students are, we need them to scan into all of these locations,” Johnson said.
Moran noted that the new system is also set up to alert staff when students have arrived in case particular students need to be given reminders of things such as fines owed, detentions to be served or in cases of emergency family matters.
Moran said that Bartlett High School took to the program for the second semester of last school year, but that it will now be used at the other three campuses, too.
Prior to the changes, Moran said at all high schools, students who arrived late were the only ones scanning in when they arrived. Students arriving at the usual start times would show their plastic ID cards.
“Those would get lost, and we would be printing new ID cards all the time,” Moran said.
No new equipment is needed for the district to adopt the process across its high school campuses.
“Schools already have barcode scanners. We simply captivated a feature of our learning management system that was previously unused. No additional equipment is needed to scan students’ IDs,” Johnson said. “This new procedure allowed us to take advantage of tools the district already possesses – barcode scanners and a feature in our learning management system.”
Mike Danahey is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.