With the popularity of extracurricular activities such as Class Night, Sports Night, and the creation of the Homecoming Parade banners, the colors of every grade have become iconic in LHS. The freshman class’ sport color is yellow, the sophomores rock the red, the juniors bleed blue, and the seniors dominate the green. These colors have always been used for each grade’s Class and Sports Night t-shirts, Homecoming banners, and, most importantly, IDs and lanyards. This year, however, a questionable decision was made: Regardless of grade, all students were given a brand-new purple ID card. This decision has received strong backlash from the students. In short, the purple ID cards have taken away an essential part of LHS culture and are quite unpleasant to the eye. 

While the purple ID cards are an eyesore, students must note that the new ID color was put into place to prevent any former students from using their past ID to enter the building. The iconic yellow, red, blue, and green IDs will not be returning for another four years, when all the current students have graduated. Junior Eric Reilly is particularly upset with the new colored ID cards. He finds the move extremely unnecessary and sees no reason for the change to have been made. “Don’t our IDs have the current school year and our graduation year on them?” asked Reilly. They do, and a simple glance at the numbers could tell security and administrators whether or not a person is meant to be in the building. Reilly was also annoyed by the way the new purple IDs bear no resemblance to the grade-specific lanyards: “Luckily, I’m a junior, so blue and purple doesn’t look too bad. But with every other grade, they look horrendous.” 

In the meantime, students are already discontented with having to wear their IDs around their neck. The addition of the odd purple color has almost entirely stripped students of their desire to wear the cards and lanyards. In a word, the ID cards are unattractive. Junior JP D’Agostino also expressed his dislike for the IDs. He described the new cards as “Grimace Shake Purple.” D’Agostino accidentally lost his purple ID and was forced to use a temporary card, which was black and white. D’Agostino says he would have preferred the temporary colorless cards to the new purple that all the students must wear. “They would have been better off with a color like black for everybody. It matches with anything,” D’Agostino said. 

Sophomore Jackson Reiser was upset at the beginning of this school year when he discovered he would not be receiving the signature red ID card. “I have been looking forward to getting a red ID card. I was really confused when we got the purple ones,” Reiser shared. He said that as odd as it was, he was looking forward to repping red this year: “My dreams were kind of crushed. Red is one of my favorite colors.” Many sophomores, juniors, and seniors were upset when they did not receive their classic-colored ID cards. While students can still sport their grade-wide colors later in the year, a year-round way of wearing the grade’s  color builds school spirit and pride in their respective class. 

So, what should the school do? While the colors for the next four years of LHS ID cards have been planned out, they have not been printed. The first option should clearly be to revert back to the classic colors. The new change is unwarranted as former students usually have no desire to sneak back into the building after they have graduated, and a simple glance at the card could prevent this from happening. Option two is to let the students decide. There is a plethora of neutral colors that students would be happier to wear over the obnoxious grape purple. There could be a quick survey sent through a Microsoft Forms to all students to allow them to decide on the schoolwide ID color. If the administration is set on not bringing back option one, the latter would at least result in significantly less backlash from students. Until then, LHS students will continue to sport the “Grimace Shake Purple” IDs daily.