Student ID Requirements 

By Luke Womack

This school year, Montgomery County Public Schools, along with numerous other school districts, have begun requiring students to wear their student IDs at all times during the school day. 

According to MCPS’s official website, the requirement was made in 1999 for students to wear their provided student identification cards, even though 20 years have passed since the initial rule was put in place, the rule is finally beginning to be enforced whether students like it or not. Students already have mixed opinions on the mandate, but the overall consensus is negative. Students around both the Einstein community and Montgomery County are unwilling to wear their IDs, yet the county is still eager to force them to do so. 

After conducting a poll, we found only a small group of students who said they wear their IDs correctly according to the policy. Most students said that they didn’t wear their ID or had it in a backpack or pocket just in case. Many others said either they wore it some of the time, or that they may have not even received one.

Other answers varied, but the main consensus was that almost 85 percent of students don’t wear their IDs like the requirements mandate. The “new” policy MCPS has decided to mandate this year hasn’t proven to be effective or even enforced here at Einstein, but is that a bad thing?

The idea that requiring students to wear IDs makes schools safer hasn’t been proven. But schools that have reduced incidents have used other measures like see-through back-packs, or metal detectors at main entrances.

One student who wished to remain anonymous said, “I don’t think that the new policy is going to change anything. Especially when it comes to school safety, people can still just leave and enter the school during lunch without any precautions. Plus, most (school) shootings have been caused by students of the school who would have IDs anyways.”