Kansas City high school uses fingerprints for scheduling
18 August, 2017
category: Biometrics, Privilege Control
Excelsior Springs High School just outside of Kansas City is now using fingerprint readers to help support a new education format that lets students plot their own daily schedules.
As reported by local Kansas City affiliate FOX 4, Excelsior Springs administrators cited schools in Iowa and Missouri as the inspiration for the new education format that promises to better prepare students for tomorrow’s workforce through “flexible modular scheduling.”
High school students will still take core classes, but will be given a additional time throughout each day to visit resource rooms staffed by teams of teachers that are designed to help them with homework or projects. The added student independence, however, created the need for greater accountability.
Under the new system, anytime a student enters a classroom setting they will first place their index finger on a fingerprint reader located at the classroom door. School administrators opted for the biometric system over standard ID cards, citing fears that the student cards could be easily traded among students looking to skip class.
As part of the new learning format, construction crews also knocked down walls to create larger, collaborative learning spaces. Each time a student decides to visit a different subject’s resource room they’ll have to present their fingerprint to a reader to log their entry and attendance.
Remaining mindful of biometrics best practices, school administrators can’t access or view the fingerprints themselves as they are encrypted. It’s something that the school officials also insisted upon when addressing initial privacy concerns expressed by parents at a recent open house event.
