Background

Students attending Wood County schools were traditionally issued ID cards that they used to pay for lunches at the school cafeterias. This process was inefficient since many students often lost their cards or simply forgot to bring them. On some days more than 80% of the student body didn't have their ID cards, in which case they were required to provide a hard-to-memorize 9-digit PIN. The disruption caused by looking for ID cards or trying to recall PINs caused lunch lines to back up. Foodservice and teaching staff were burdened by the effort and cost of administering new cards, and the inevitable entering of inaccurate PINs resulted in faulty charges and unhappy parents. In addition, students from lower income families who felt stigmatized for receiving and having to use subsidized meal tickets often didn't eat or sold their tickets for cash.

Challenge

The Wood County School District sought an alternative system that would make it easier for students to pay for their lunches while freeing up foodservice and teaching staff to concentrate on their primary responsibilities of food service and instruction. The district wanted a cost-effective application that would integrate with its existing cafeteria software.

Customer Profile

The Wood County School District in West Virginia educates over 13,750 students at 19 elementary schools and 8 secondary schools. The school district employees 120 foodservices employees serving over 1.8 million meals per year. Solution The district implemented UPEK's TouchChip® fingerprint readers in conjunction with identiMetrics' identiFiT software that utilize BIO-key's matching algorithms. After a one-time enrollment, students at the lunch line now simply place their finger on a fingerprint reader that identifies them and automatically charges a pre-paid account set up by their parents. The combination of the high performance fingerprint readers from UPEK, identiMetrics' identity management software and BIO-key's robust algorithm reliably identifies a wide variety of fingerprints of kids, who traditionally have hard-to-read fingerprints, resulting in a seamless checkout.

Results

Students no longer have to carry an ID card or memorize a PIN, and foodservice and teaching staff have been freed from resolving issues arising from lost cards and forgotten PINs. Lunches are now served efficiently so that students can spend more time eating their meals instead of waiting in line. And kids receiving subsidized meals pay for lunch with their fingerprints just like all the other kids so they no longer feel ashamed of being treated differently. The solution from UPEK, identiMetrics and BIO-key has been well received by the Board, Superintendent, Principals, teachers, parents and the community. They all understood the need to correctly identify students and realized the time and money it was costing each day to administer the card program. Initially, there were questions regarding privacy, but these questions were put to rest when they understood that fingerprint images are never stored, only some unique identifying points that can't be used to recreate a fingerprint image. The system installed in the cafeteria is currently being expanded to take attendance in classrooms, check out library books, document visits to the nurse's office, and protect access at the front door. "With all of the lost, stolen and damaged cards, sometimes I thought Food Service was in the card business rather than serving meals to students," said Beverly Blough, Director of Food Services at Wood County Schools. "In foodservice, seconds count. My goal is to keep it simple for the students and my staff and make it an enjoyable experience to come to the school cafeteria.UPEK, identiMetrics and BIO-key have allowed me to achieve this goal."