In schools across Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), a sweeping change has been taking root in school cafeterias. Since the 2011-2012 school year, LAUSD has been making efforts to remove the “lunch ticket system” and instead, replace it with a PIN-number system.
The former system, which consisted of having students give cafeteria managers tickets based on the day of the month and meal of the day, was considered inefficient and an ineffective model on which to function. Students would chronically misplace their tickets and would delay lunch lines in locating these tickets on their persons, or would simply forgo lunch altogether. Considering the easiness with which the paper could tear or be worn down, LAUSD administrators decided to find another method for distributing lunches to students in the district.
According to LA Center of Enriched Studies high school, which recently adopted the new system as of October 18, “cafeteria[s] will switch to a Point-of-Service (POS) system, replacing the use of tickets and meal cards. Students will no longer lose tickets and meal cards because they won’t have or need them!” The system has been adopted in a number of schools, and is still in the process of being implemented into all of the schools in the LAUSD school district.
The high school further notes, “Each student will be identified by a unique Personal Identification Number (PIN). The student keys his or her PIN into the keypad at the cashier station and the cashier can identify the student based on the PIN and the school photo that appears on the screen.”
Although it is more technologically savvy than a fold-and-cut ticket system that differentiates between different meal plans students have with codes inscribed in blue on the ticket, it has proved to be far from an ideal solution. It has slowed down lunch lines significantly; students take longer to punch in their pin numbers and moreover, as many students recently introduced to the system have yet to memorize their PIN codes, they take a significant proportion of time in confirming their PIN codes.
Schools have attempted to ease the problem by introducing multiple PIN machines and encouraging students to memorize their numbers, so as to slow traffic. Whether or not this proves effective, however, is only up to time to tell.
