Starting next school year, students will be required to wear school lanyards on campus at all times. This new policy hopes to provide an extra level of protection for the students while they are on campus.

     “I feel that lanyards are somewhat in between a good and bad idea because I don’t feel like it’s very ideal to wear a lanyard to school. I just don’t want to wear a lanyard around school, but I understand where they are coming from,” sophomore Linnea Whittington said.

     Students have mixed opinions on whether or not lanyards are a good idea, but they understand how they are improving the safety of the school. Administrators have high hopes for the new lanyard policies to improve our safety as a whole.

     “It will help us to easily identify the people on campus as people who are supposed to be on campus. Another piece of this is that we are having more homeschooled athletes participating in our athletics at our school, and some of those kids are not easily identifiable, so we need to have badges for them as well. So that when homeschoolers come on campus, we can easily identify them as someone who belongs here,” Kevin Helms, Dean of Discipline and School Safety Specialist, said.

     As the new lanyard policy rolls out next year, it is clear that it has both pros and cons for students and administrators. Overall, this change coming next school year will improve the safety of many on campus.