ID Badges for Safety, Discipline

Re “Back to School With Photo ID Badges,” Aug. 1: As an English teacher at Nogales High School in La Puente, I want to commend the leadership at Murrieta Valley High School for implementing this increasingly necessary school policy. The use of clearly visible identification will facilitate safety and discipline on its campus. The use of ID badges will help alleviate the kinds of problems that many teachers experience: On numerous occasions, students have ignored teachers’ instructions for one simple reason: Teachers often do not know the name of the offending students.

Several times, students have turned their backs on me and run away when I have tried to take them to the office. When students are asked for their IDs the response is frequently, “I forgot it.” Yet halfway to the office, the student pipes up, “Oh! I guess I have my ID after all.”

There is a positive and even more important reason to implement a photo ID policy. While privacy may be the concern of some, I believe that we should welcome the opportunity to become acquainted with our children. I asked my students in several classes if anyone knew the name of every other person in any of their classes. Only one student answered yes. That was in his advanced-placement calculus class, which had very few students.

If readers were to ask their children the name of every other student in any of their high school classes, they might be amazed at how few could say yes. Remember, many of these students have been attending classes together since elementary school! I welcome the opportunity to say good morning to a student as I mention his or her name. And we wonder why many teenagers do not feel comfortable at school. Could it be because no one knows who they are?

Michael Dalton

Duarte

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I’m not sure what sort of security can be offered the teenage girl whose school ID badge is just about even with her bare bellybutton. And I love the comment of Assistant Principal Mick Wager, who refers to wearing a security badge as the same thing as a dress code. What dress code?

Elinor Lynch

Palm Desert

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I don’t know how there can be a concern for privacy; there should be a concern for legislating a dress code. Murrieta Valley High School surely needs one. I couldn’t believe the pictures. One student’s ID was just a little smaller than her outfit.

Ruthe Bryant

Long Beach