The first school with smart lockers in the country

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The Baldwin school district announced the completion of newly installed smart lockers for students to use throughout the Baldwin School High School.

The Baldwin School District finished its installation of smart lockers in the Baldwin High School — the first school district in the country to implement smart lockers.

The school district said the smart lockers are secure, automated lockers with integrated computers and sensor networks, which open with the swipe of a student ID badge. They said among the numerous benefits of smart lockers, all lockers could be easily opened or locked with the click of a button. 

No longer will students toil at their lockers, twisting locks and entering combinations, to access their belongings — now they simply swipe their card to open the unit.

According to ABC’s eyewitness news, the school district spent less than $900,000 — half of which was covered by New York state grant money.

School officials, like Susan Cools, president of the board, said the lockers serve several purposes. The first is to bring the Baldwin school district further into the future and giving their students technology, which gives them easy access to their lockers. The second is for security reasons.

Cools said the smart lockers help encourage students to wear their student ID’s — which she said are seldom used by students. She said the lockers also provide security, because in the case of an emergency, all lockers can be opened and accessed at the push of a button controlled by school officials. Inversely, the lockers can be locked and secured by school officials.

“It’s a really important security measure,” said Cools.

Cools said the school district plans will issue students new ID cards, which will access doors and lockers, and give school officials real time data on who is in the building and where.

“How many kids are out on lunch, how many kids need to be in the building, or need to get out of the building,” said Cools. “Currently we have no way of knowing, until we get these systems in place.”