by Tim Troglen
Reporter
Hudson -- It may seem like something out of a science fiction or high-tech movie, but the finger scanning identification seen on the big screen may soon become a reality throughout the school district.
Maureen Faron, the district's director of food and nutritional services, gave a presentation to the Board of Education Dec. 8 on a pilot program which will allow students at McDowell Elementary School to do away with identification cards and use, instead, biotechnology fingerprint scanning in the cafeteria lunch line.
According to Sheryl Sheatzley, district communications manager, the Board does not need to approve the program.
Faron said the program, which is used at several Ohio schools, including Seton Catholic School in Hudson, assigns an identification number to a student, according to the ridges of the fingerprints.
And, according to Faron, parents have no need to fear their children's prints will be used for other means. She said the prints will not be stored in a database.
"The image is discarded, so it is not equal to a forensic fingerprint," Faron said. "It cannot be duplicated, lost or stolen, and it ensures a unique identification mechanism."
Faron said the program, which she hopes will spread throughout the school district, should cut costs and eliminate both the time and money wasted by students and teachers to remake lost or stolen identification cards.
She said it costs an elementary school student $5 for a replacement card. A replacement card costs a high school student $15. And Faron said staff members spend about two hours each day replacing student cards.
Last week, 250 students at one school did not have their cards, she said. By the time the students were identified and processed through the lunch line, they only had about five minutes to eat lunch.
Faron said the scan program will cost a one-time fee of $1,500, with the money coming from the food service fund.
"We already have the software needed, and I have implemented the process at Seton Catholic School," she said.
The Hudson school district also provides food service to Seton Catholic School, Faron said.
She said parents should begin receiving letters Jan. 5 from the district explaining the process.
Faron said she hopes to have the pilot program up and running next early next year at McDowell, and a different pilot started at the high school in April.
Faron took a group of parents on a field trip to Seton Catholic School Dec. 9 to see how the program worked.
"The parents today were very excited," Faron said after the visit.
She said the technology for the scanning has been around since 2001 and is used by 750,000 students in Ohio.
"We are in no way biotechnical pioneers," Faron said. "The technology has been tried and tested."
Faron said the lunch lines went "cashless" earlier this year and that this is the next step.
Board Member Gary Mushock said the pilot "sounds like a very intriguing concept."
E-mail: ttroglen@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3146