Students at Philadelphia's sixty high schools issued contactless campus ID cards
Access, attendance tracking, lunch programs drive the implementation provided by Scholarchip
Andy Williams, Contributing Editor
Colleges have been using campus card ID systems for years. But with increasing security concerns, similar products are moving into public schools. One example: Philadelphia, Penn.’s school system where high school students at 60 schools have been provided a contactless ID card needed to gain admission to school property, track attendance, and, in some cases, buy lunch in the cafeteria.
"We have 56,000 high school students and we wanted a better handle on (them)," said Patricia DiLella, senior project manager for Philadelphia School District’s Office of Information Technology. "Before, everyone was assumed present until marked absent. We needed something to track students. With this new system, everyone is assumed absent until they tap (their card) and have physically been seen by school personnel."
Via a request for proposal process, the district selected ScholarChip Card LLC, a seven-year-old organization whose origins date to higher education and has since incorporated K-12 schools in its lineup. While ScholarChip had been conducting a pilot program in two of Philadelphia’s middle schools, it landed the five-year contract because it ...   more »