Golly, it certainly sounds innocent enough.
Tracking Students’ Fingerprints
Ohio County Schools Scanning Prints to Avoid Clerical Errors
September 28, 2014
By DREW PARKER Staff Writer, The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register
WHEELING - Hot dogs. Pizza. Hamburgers. Fingerprint scans.
Wondering what these have in common? They all are part of the public school lunch process at several Ohio County public schools.
Wheeling Middle School is the fourth Ohio County school to implement the biometric fingerprint scanner, joining Wheeling Park High School, Ritchie Elementary and Elm Grove Elementary schools. A letter last week on Wheeling Middle's web page alerted parents to the change.
The system, technically known as a biometric finger-scanning identification program, is "an effort to provide security for your child's cafeteria account, eliminate clerical errors, and provide students an easy way to identify themselves when entering the school's cafeteria."
Similar to an iPhone's touch identification feature, the system will require each student to store two fingerprints within the software for future identification.
Wheeling Middle School students are expected to have their scans done and start using the system sometime in October. Only the print scan and student barcode will be stored in the software, Wheeling Middle School Principal Rich McCardle said.
McCardle said currently, a staff member has to manually code each student going through the lunch line through a barcode system. He said the process can cut into the amount of time students have to eat.
"The goal is to help speed up the process of moving students through the lunch line in a 30-minute time limit," McCardle said. "It also eliminates the need for additional staff in the lunchroom."
Although Wheeling Middle and several other Ohio County schools offer free breakfast and lunch to all students through a federal grant, McCardle said a tracking system is still needed in the cafeteria.
"We still need to track lunch for the state department in order for reimbursements and show that we are correctly utilizing the service," McCardle said. "The success of these programs allow for other county schools and schools throughout the state to add free lunch and breakfast programs."
McCardle said an eventual goal for the county is to use the identification system for football game admission, school dances and possibly class attendance and tardiness.
Renee Griffin, child nutrition coordinator for Ohio County Schools, said the county's other schools are in the process of having the fingerprint system installed. Griffin said she did not have an exact price paid by the county for the systems three years ago, but said that each unit was less than $1,000 and paid for by a combination of tax and grant money. Each school has one scanner.
Griffin said schools that do not offer free breakfast and lunch also benefit from the addition.
"It's worked out beautifully at the high school, making lines move much faster and getting students back into the classroom," Griffin said. "This most importantly ensures speed, but we're also making sure students aren't using each other's cards or forgetting an identification number."
All parents in the county have an option to not allow their child to participate in the program by contacting the school office. Griffin said parents have no reason to worry about their child's privacy under the new system.
"This is just a scan, and not a true fingerprint. It's a picture transformed into numbers, only corresponding with their identification number," Griffin said. "I assure parents that this program has worked very securely over the past few years."
