The primary purpose of most student ID cards is to protect – ID badges help quickly identify students and staff in case of emergency, and they are an easy way to single out who should and should not be in the school at any given moment. Student ID cards can also serve as library cards and cafeteria “money cards” that can be used to pay for hot lunches. Schools most often implement ID card policies to make security and attendance easier. But in Sioux City, Iowa, West High School sees the addition of ID cards to student life as a change in the student culture.

All West High School students are required to have a prominently displayed ID badge at all times – and not just on their person – it should be visible from the front, and students will be stopped otherwise. There are several ways to easily display ID cards, including lanyards and badge clips. The ID cards came along after several violent fights in the prior school year, and after a nearby high school barely escaped a school shooting.
While there has been a some resistance to the new program, students and staff generally approve of the ID card changes. Besides security, the cards encourage student responsibility and make it easier for teachers to match names to faces, a difficult quest in a large public school. They’ve also helped decrease violence – in the prior school year, fights were inevitable, one student said. Now, there have been just a couple, and the rare fight is broken up by students before it escalates.
It truly has been a culture change at West High school in Sioux City – and an example of a student ID card program that works.