Case History (Real-World Solutions)
ID Card Program Improves Attendance and Security
Scholarchip helped Westbury Schools implement an ID Card Program that helped streamline administrative and security processes.
Westbury Public Schools is a suburban school district outside of New York City with an enrollment of approximately 5000 students and 800 staff members.
Although it’s in the suburbs, it is a 98 percent minority district with over a 90 percent free and reduced lunch population and 48 percent ELL (English Language Learners) population.
A major challenge facing the district is a high mobility rate, a measure of how many students are transferring in and out of a school, of 20 to 25 percent annually, with students leaving the district for weeks or months at a time. This means that Westbury needs to encourage students to attend school as much as possible during the year.
One of the ways that Westbury embraced this issue was by using technology to support the process. ScholarChip, a pioneer of centralized and integrated School Safety and Operations Systems, worked with Westbury Schools to implement a system that uses Passive MIFARE (contactless) Smart ID Cards.
These cards were issued to all students and staff to help improve attendance in Westbury’s High School and increase student success rates across the entire district. Students and staff are required to use these cards for a variety of services.
ScholarChip also worked with Westbury Schools to create standalone kiosks; these portable dual screen, dual sensor units are placed at the entrances to both the High School and the Middle School every morning. Students tap their cards or input their ID numbers upon entering the building.
This automated process generates list of late/absent children; the parents of those children are then called by an automated system reporting them as absent, which makes the process more streamlined.
As a result of this ID Card Program, Westbury discovered student attendance improved dramatically, administrative processes became more streamlined, security increased and teachers had more time for instruction in their classrooms. Westbury’s adoption of ScholarChip’s technology is a resounding success.
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This article originally appeared in the issue of .