Yes, safety has been and is a major issue at educational campuses around the United States. Yes, rules and procedures need to be put in place to protect its students and faculty. No, lanyards are not the way to provide safety to everyone on campus. What’s the benefit to wearing a piece of fabric around your neck that is a different color based on the grade? The way I see it, the only benefit to the lanyards is being able to tell who the freshmen are in your Algebra II class. 

Things need to be changed around the area to provide students with the safest environment during the school day. With all that’s happened on school property in the 50 states, I don’t blame the school board for creating new procedures to keep us students safe. But lanyards? According to the Washington Post, 70% of school shooters were students within the ages of sixteen to eighteen, so that the majority of students whom the school trusted were the people committing the horrible shootings. Although the lanyards could protect us from the other 30% of people who are strangers on the campus, there is still the worry of the majority of people who are wearing lanyards. 

There is a major inconvenience of remembering to put your lanyard back in your backpack after every school day. What if you normally keep your lanyard in the car and have to unexpectedly take your siblings the next morning? The lanyard wouldn’t be with you and the punishment is outrageous. I understand the first time a student gets a warning. But if they forget again it’s five flex jails? Spending 225 minutes in “jail” is excessive compared to one day of detention.

Not only are they not the most fashionable pieces someone can wear, but the plastic holding the lanyards is cheap and too big. Already within the first three weeks of school the plastic punch out where the metal clasp attaches to the fabric is tearing and about to fall off. Not only that, but the plastic is so stretched out my key card has fallen out in the hallway, in my car and on the parking lot. Then when I lose it, I have to pay for a replacement card. The plastic is also majorly larger than the actual key card is. This just creates more worry on the card falling out and having to pay ten dollars for a replacement. The card was better off like it was last year in the safety of my wallet. 

Lanyards are unnecessary and a burden to the student population. There are so many consequences for losing and forgetting them that make students forget their actual purpose. I understand that we need to be secure on school grounds. But wearing a flimsy, colored piece of fabric is not the way to ensure our safety.