POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. – Hall passes just don’t cut it anymore at a Missouri high school. Now the staff and 1,300 students have to wear IDs when they roam the halls.
The rule became mandatory last month at the high school in Poplar Bluff, Mo.
School officials say there was no single security breakdown that prompted them to require the IDs, but some students who’d gotten in trouble in the past had given teachers false names and there had been cases of trespassers found wandering on campus.
Principal Scott Young said the school is enforcing the new rule to better protect the students. Anyone caught without an ID gets a warning; a third infraction lands offenders in detention.
But some students and parents are furious about the mandate, and one father even removed his two daughters from the school because of the IDs.
John Durbin said the rule provides a false sense of security, because it would be easy to make fake versions of the badges. He showed FOX News the phonies he made at home.
A number of students are wearing the IDs under protest, but they seem to be outnumbered by those who think that more security is better — even in a town of 17,000.
Click on the box at the top of the story to watch a report by FOX News' Jeff Goldblatt.
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