iPad In
School Introduces New iPad System
People tend to think of Parker as a safe and secure place.
Each morning the Francis Parker Security Officers are tasked with ensuring the safe arrival and departure of students at Parker. As students travel in and out of school, they are supposed to scan in and out of the building so that the security staff is able to can keep track of which students are in the building. Despite being told to sign in and out of the building, the vast majority of students do not sign in daily.
“The legal responsibility [of the school] Since we have an open campus, we are supposed to know who is in the building at all times: faculty, staff and students,” Director of Facilities Rick Dusing said regarding the legal responsibility of the school.
“It is important for students to sign in and out in case there is a fire or another emergency,” Parker Security Officer Terry Bolden said. Bolden has been working at Parker since the beginning of last school year. He also explained that the ID roster can be used “[The ID roster can be used] like a black box in an airplane so that the school knows who is supposed to be in the building,” he said.
“We want to have a good accounting of which students are in the building should an emergency take place, or should anyone be looking to contact them,” Upper School Dean of Student Life Christian Bielizna said, when asked why students should sign into the building.
Despite being required by law to sign in, students generally do not sign in. “I do not sign in using my student ID in the mornings,” senior Elisabye Slaymaker said. “But when leaving for lunch, I do fill out the paper sheet and now using the iPad form.” Slaymaker explained she has lost her ID, which is why she doesn’t sign in.
Other students who do have their ID’s have different issues with signing in daily. “It is really hard when carrying my tennis bag and my backpack to scan in,” sophmore Julia Auerbach said. “I try to [sign in], but don’t usually.”
When students do not have their IDs or do not sign at all, the first issue is that the school does not have a record of them entering the building. Despite having class attendance records, Parker doesn’t have hall passes or bathroom passes, so if there is if a student that isn’t signing in/out, there isn’t a way to track them if they leave class, and there isn’t a way or to track what students are doing during lunch and breaks or class period breaks.
Over the years, the security officers and the Upper School office have been working to increase the ease of signing in and out of the building. In order to aid the rush of students entering the building during the morning, additional scanners to sign in have been placed around the school.
“We expect the students to sign in every day, and a couple of years ago we added scan in stations in the Upper School, one on both the third and fourth floors,” Dusing said.
In the past, students have been able to leave the building regardless of if they have an ID or not, but prior to leaving, they needed to sign out on a piece of paper. Bielizna has updated this system to streamline the process. “We will use the new iPads to generate a spreadsheet to keep track of where students are. We will also be able to sort by day or time to look for trends as to why students do not have their IDs when they go to leave the building,” Bielizna said. Bielizna added that the data will be used to support students by quickly replacing IDs, should students indicated on the form that they have lost them.
Students at the Latin School of Chicago, students are required to sign in every day. “We use our IDs to sign in and out of school and to get out lunches,” Latin senior Ainsley Cummis said. “If we forget our IDs, we need to check our name on a sheet when entering, and the front desk staff will sign students in manually.”
When asked if this process makes her feel safer at school, Cummins said, “In case of a fire, yes, this process makes me feel safer, as the school is able to know if I am in the building or not.”
While Parker does expect students to use its sign in and out system, students don’t always follow the expectation. “If the school wants to increase the number of students signing in, the school should have a punishment tied to the requirement,” said junior Rob Currie. Currie continued in saying that he doesn’t believe that there should be a punishment for not signing in, as he doesn’t believe that it’s worth punishing students over.
“In a perfect world, everyone with an ID would sign in and out as they leave the building, and at 11:30 at night, there will only be 4 four people in the building––the two security officers and the two maintenance staff––who swipe out as they lock the building,” Dusing said.
Since the school began issuing IDs, they have been constantly improving the system, but student attitude toward signing in would need to be changed if the school wants to transition to a system similar to Latin’s. “For some people, it’s just not something that they care enough about to do every day,” Currie said.
