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Students at Seneca Valley School District's secondary campus will be required to wear photo identification cards next school year.

And students who lose them will have to shell out $5 to replace them.

The color- and bar-coded cards -- purchased with $23,000 in grant money for new library cards -- will be used to beef up security and ID student athletes and students when the district conducts random drug tests. The cards will be distributed in the fall to students in grades 7-12, and also will be used in the school library and as debit cards in the cafeteria.

"For the same reason that businesses use them, identification cards are useful for building security," school board President Dean Berkebile said. "The cards are multi-functional, so they will efficiently handle a number of purposes."

Shaler Area is weighing a plan to issue ID badges to students after an ex-student in April slashed a 17-year-old student in the high school cafeteria.

"We haven't taken the step to mandate (students) wear the badges," Superintendent Donald Lee said. "There are still some logistics we are wrestling with. What do you do with a student that forgets their badge?"

That's a question Seneca Valley officials have only partially answered. Beyond the $5 replacement charge, officials have not decided what the penalty will be for students who forget their cards or do not wear them, Berkebile said.

The color codes on the cards will correspond to buildings, so card bearers who are in the wrong building can easily be spotted, Assistant Superintendent Denise Chappell said.

"This is just an extension of our effort to have safe schools," she said.

Chappell said photos for the cards will be retrieved from a CD-ROM of last year's school pictures. Student athletes participating in fall sports who must have drug tests before the school year begins will be issued their identification cards sooner, she said. The district last year approved random drug testing for student athletes and students who drive to school.

At least one parent likes the idea of ID cards.

Betty Cuccaro -- a 1983 Seneca Valley High School graduate -- said she wouldn't mind paying the $5 for a new card, since she had to dish out money last year for extra lunch tickets to replace those her son lost.

"The ID card will be harder to lose," she said.

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