If you’re ever running late to school, there’s a new way of getting in. When you get to school after 8 a.m., or you leave and return to school, you now have to have your school ID on you at all times to be allowed in. If you do not have your ID, they won’t let you in. Sophomore Grace Long found the new coming into school late rules a bit over the edge.

“I think it is kind of pointless to have them check our ID’s every time we come in when we have to go to attendance and sign in anyways,” Long said. “The patrol officer makes sense checking in everyone else, but showing IDs does not.”

  Long finds running to school late is stressful. If she forgets her ID, it takes more time to deal with that than simply signing in and going straight to class and not missing anything important.

“One time I had a quiz I was trying to take and I forgot my ID and it got complicated because I had to go to the office and check in and ended up missing my quiz,” Long said. “So having to show our ID’s can be a struggle sometimes.”

Officer Greg Merchant thinks differently. He thinks that the new security is a  new step to tighter security. Last year this security system wasn’t there. They couldn’t control the doors but they still used the Raptor. The Raptor is a machine that scans driver’s licenses for a background check to make sure visitors have not been convicted of anything.

“When they come in they need a driver’s license. I use a Raptor that checks ID’s for crimes, but we can’t check for weapons yet which I think would be good to have,” Merchant said.

When students forget their ID’s, Merchant sends them to the office to be checked there. If they don’t have their ID office aid Candy Bailey takes down their names the first time. The second time, students are required to have their IDs and will have to pay for them.  It is $5 to get their ID, if they don’t have the money they will have to go to the bookkeeper and the $5 gets put into their account.

“They are not overjoyed. It’s a security issue. Most of them are OK with getting an ID, but there were a couple of different students who refused to get IDs. If I had to say, more than 90 percent don’t have a lot of problems,” Bailey said.

At South security has been a number one priority for the students and teachers who come here daily. Adding to the security, first semester the main entrance has been modified into an elaborate security measure. The one to grab this new entrance is Officer Greg Merchant.

“I’ve been working here for exactly one year, and I have been very happy with everything. All of the technical stuff is working smoothly so far,” Merchant said.

Not being able to be two places at once Merchant has a more convenient approach to the problem.

“They placed 12 monitors in the new security entrance, and that is not including the laptop,” Merchant said.