Change isn't always welcomed, and to some students at Warsaw Community High School, it is downright resented.

Judging by recent letters to the editor of the Times-Union, this year's requirement for WCHS students to wear their identification cards at all times while they're at school is not a popular one. A letter by Staci Wright in Tuesday's edition complained about students having to "show off their horrible school pictures," and one in Thursday's paper by Tim McKinley said that wearing the IDs is "an excessive display of unnecessary security, which also undermines the social self-confidence of the students."

Letters aside, school officials have received few official complaints from students, and none from parents, said assistant principal Dr. Jennifer Brumfield.

"The only comments we've gotten from parents are positive" because parents know the school has security in mind, she said earlier this week.

So why are students required to wear their IDs this year?

According to Brumfield and to Paul Crousore, WCHS principal, the main reason is to, well, identify students.

"With a student body of more than 1,800 students, our staff don't always know who's supposed to be here," Brumfield said. "When you see an ID, you know that students is supposed to be here. You also know if a student is where they're not supposed to be."

Staff members have worn their ID cards for "a couple of years," Crousore said, and they recommended that students wear theirs as well.

"It also has been recommended nationally as a school safety measure," he said.

The ID cards not only identify students, he said, but also function as the students' library cards and can be used as an "outside door key."

According to Crousore, staff members' cards are programmed into the security system as a means of opening locked doors. Likewise, some students who go in and out of school for special or vocational education programs are able to use their IDs to open doors.

This use for the cards is not school-wide, Crousore said, nor does he see that in the future.

"It's a tool that's available," he said. "It's mostly used in specific instances."

Rumors of the penalty for not wearing or for forgetting the ID card also have been exaggerated, Brumfield said: The first violation is not Friday school, as Wright claimed in her letter to the editor.

Brumfield said the rules take into account that sometimes people don't remember to wear their IDs.

"Kids are going to forget. We have staff members who forget. It's going to happen," she said.

And if they do forget?

"They are given a temporary badge from the bookstore up to three occasions per semester," she said. "The fourth time they get detention. If they lose it, they pay for a new one."

The IDs cost, according to Warsaw Community Schools Business Manager Rande Thorpe, 40 cents apiece for the badge and 70 cents for each lanyard, which the school supplies each student. (For 1,800 students at $1.10 each, that would be a total of $1,980 per year, and, Thorpe said, the lanyards are reusable.) [[In-content Ad]]