I don't know how many high schools use the Plasco system, so for potential readers from the world outside of our particular child observation laboratory, this is how it works. Various security guards stand in popular points of entrance and are otherwise interspersed evenly about the school. They carry little scanners and printers, which scan a tardy student's ID and print off a pass. It also catalogs the event, so that a student is automatically issued a detention on the fifth tardy.
It's a seemingly good system, and makes it simple to keep track of a student's transgressions. There is one crucial flaw, however. It's incredibly inefficient. Students first have to find a security guard, then they have to wait in a line with as many as twenty people in it, making the student even later to class. Sometimes by a good fifteen minuets. If there is a malfunction in the wireless, they then have to find another guard, one weeks machine is actually working, and wait with a huge number of other students due to the sudden delay. There are horror stories among us about those who've been an extra thirty minuets late.
On top of this, the system is hugely expensive to keep up, costing several thousand dollars on startup and more if one considers the necessary maintenance. Ink and paper for the printers alone must cost an arm and a leg.
Thus my proposal: Get rid of the things! Add a 'tardy' option to the attendance and keep track of it all that way, because really this is getting ridiculous.
I agree that the plasco passes are a hassle sometimes, but there is not much else the school can do to prevent or keep track of the tardies. Hopefully, OPRF can figure out the problems with the system so the students can get to class at a decent time. I did like your post because its an issue that needs to be fixed.
ReplyDeleteI agree. In theory, it is a good idea, but in execution, it can be pretty inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI like your use of the term "child observation laboratory", by the way. Nice reflection!
I strongly support your argument. Last week, I received a detention for arriving more than 10 minutes late to class even though I had a pass from my previous teacher. I don't know exactly what happened, but my teacher likely forgot to enter the pass into the computer system, and for whatever reason, I was marked 16 minutes late to class. I don't know how the system could make such an error, as I never contacted a security guard to get a pass on that day. This system needs to be fixed before other people get wrongful detentions.
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