One short video shown to the school last Wednesday spawned a huge uproar from students of which,
unfortunately, feedback was largely negative. The culprit: a new tardy system called PlascoTrac.

“Everybody’s worried about this being some big major change,” said Donald Hantson, dean of
students. “If you’re late you’re going to get marked tardy…just as if you were late to class before.
Nothing is really changed except now when you’re tardy, you’re going to get scanned by the Plasco.”

Many students were confused by the system and how it worked, but Hantson and Dean of Students
Chris Duncan have a simple way of explaining it.

Following the same process as for the former “sweep room”, those who are tardy will go straight to the
nearest accessible Plasco device instead. Three mobile units will be held by hall monitors while two units
will be stationed at offices. Equal distribution will eliminate the need to walk across the entire school
just to be allowed back into class.

“Our purpose is to get [students] to class as quickly as possible,” said Duncan.

Simply scanning your ID card will produce a printed receipt with the following: name, ID number, the
infraction, the number of the repeated infraction, the consequence, and the date. The time of scanning
will also be noted on the receipt to avoid abuse of the pass.

“Obviously if you’re taking 10 minutes to get from the Plasco station to class, you’re going to have
another issue,” said Hantson.

PlascoTrac also assists with attendance by updating records every 10 minutes, which will remove
unnecessary calls down to attendance because of teachers forgetting to revise absences.

Again, this automatic attendance does not permit wandering the halls. A hall monitor with a mobile
device is free to scan an ID card again if a student chooses to skip class, meaning another consequence
will be added.

With a new camera system, the movement of supervisors, and PlascoTrac all working together, it will be
very hard for students to get away with tardiness or truancy, making the system highly effective.

“We hope that the problem will get solved quicker,” said Hantson.

It will also bring to attention students who legitimately make an effort to be on time, but still have
trouble getting to class.

Parents of freshmen often call in to criticize how their child’s classes are too far, but after sitting down
with the school map and charting a different route, the issue is easily resolved.

“A lot of people end up being late because they’re either taking a bad route to class or they’re making
unnecessary stops on their way to class,” said Hantson.

PlascoTrac’s purpose is to pinpoint both situations and essentially make things easier on faculty and
students alike.

Nevertheless, PlascoTrac is versatile, something the video did not address and therefore caused
objections based on costs.

“This system can be used for much more than tardies. We can put any infraction we want in [Plasco],”
said Hantson.

ID cards can be scanned for wearing hats, dressing inappropriately, or breaking other school rules.

Incentive programs can be built in as well where merit points can be earned for rewards such as
entrance into drawings and the likes.

Remember waiting in line before Homecoming? That too can be eliminated by replacing tickets with
quick scanning of ID cards for admittance into football games, dances, and other school events can

“It’s truly a tracking device,” said Duncan. “It’s used by most schools for tardiness, but it’s very
multipurpose and we will use it to its extent.”

Being new this year, PlascoTrac will first be used exclusively for tardies; but once all staff members are
trained and the system’s full capabilities are realized, PlascoTrac should make procedures in general run
much smoother.