STUDENTS and faculty are questioning whether the new attendance kiosks have actually improved schoolwide attendance. Ever since the start of the school year at Granger High School, students have been responsible for checking themselves into class. Teachers have set aside traditional roll calls for digital kiosks, and with more than a month passed since the policy was implemented, opinions remain divided on overall effectiveness.

Ms. Green, who is an AP Literature and sophmore English teacher says staff struggled with the new kiosk policy on multiple occasions at the start of the school year. Green says technical difficulties led teachers to accidentally mark countless students absent when they were actually present in class, adding that the system could have been great if everyone knew how to operate it.

Jenny Cazares (9) says the new system is overall great and has not brought any issues over the past several weeks, preferring it over traditional roll call. Cazares says the system has neither improved nor worsened personal attendance overall. “I honestly think that I would prefer entering my student number in the kiosk rather than having teacher roll call,” Cazares said.

However Rocio Cuenca, an attendance secretary, disagrees with that assessment. “I don’t think the kiosk is useful because the system always breaks down,” Cuenca said.

Charlotte Jiron (9) says the new policy caused trouble at the start of the year, though students have mostly gotten the hang of it now. Jiron says checking in manually feels odd compared to traditional roll call and notes frustration regarding replacement fees for lost student IDs. “I really don’t like it much, so I would say I dislike it more than I like it,” Jiron said.

Kale Worthen (11) says system errors initially caused difficulties before students adapted, though the kiosk has still helped improve personal attendance overall. Despite preferring the kiosk over traditional roll call, Worthen experienced major glitches during the rollout. “At first, the attendance kiosk got me a lunch detention. Although I signed in four minutes early, it still marked me absent,” Worthen said.

Overall, students and staff express mixed feelings regarding the attendance kiosks, with opinions leaning slightly negative due to ongoing technical glitches. As the school year progresses, the Granger community remains hopeful that future software updates will improve the system for both students and teachers.