At the beginning of the school year, each Andover student was provided with a BlueCard ID, which is required for opening buildings across campus. In the 2024-2025 school year, BlueCards were free to replace at the office of Physical Plant (OPP) if lost; in previous years, the same replacement would cost approximately 20 dollars. This year, however, students who lose their BlueCards incur a 40 dollar replacement fee.
The new fee was implemented in late September 2025, according to Mark Leonard, the Director of Campus Safety. This was one year after Campus Safety took over the role of printing and issuing badges from the BlueCard office. Leonard discussed the various reasons that prompted the creation of the fee.
“When we took over the badging, we upgraded the badge. The badge itself, the blanks, are more secure. They can’t be copied as easily because we were concerned about the safety and security of the buildings, the students, the staff, everything. We upgraded the card to a more secure card, and they cost more money,” said Leonard.
He continued, “We order 2,000 cards at a time, and it’s 8,000-9,000 dollars for the cards. There are 1,150 students during the year, and no charge for their first card. [We decided] that we need to start charging [replacements]. Hopefully, students would then keep a closer eye on them.”
The policy was not communicated through an email or other announcement, which resulted in some students being unaware of the change in policy. Wylie Roossien ’26, who had in previous years lost her BlueCard twice, did not know that there was now a replacement cost. She mentioned that, while the fee would likely motivate students to be more careful with their BlueCards, the lack of clear communication to the student body could prevent awareness of the rule at all.
“[The change in policy] needs to be communicated to people before they get a BlueCard that it’s costing them… If [the change] is coming through Campus Safety, there should definitely be conversations facilitated between the administration and us. I think there’s probably a disconnect there, and most of the student body just isn’t aware. If they were to be informed by some faculty or adult presence on campus, that would really help us all out and make sure that fewer BlueCards are being lost, like mine,” said Roossien.
Some students believed that although a replacement fee encouraged responsibility, it could have a disparate impact on students experiencing financial difficulties. Teddy Blum ’29 hasn’t lost his BlueCard yet, but felt that the replacement fee should be lower, not immediate, and that the school should waive the charge for the first few times in certain scenarios.
“First of all, it’s a very high [replacement] fee. 40 dollars is a lot for most people. Also, I think that how they handle it by making the students pay for it is not good. The parents of the student should be the ones who replace the blue card. If they want to make their kids pay for it, that’s another story, but I don’t think kids should have to pay at the time of replacement,” said Blum.
Leonard emphasized the importance of alerting Campus Safety when a BlueCard is lost due to potential security risks, and shared that students may not be immediately charged if they do not have personal means to pay on the spot.
“One thing I do want to highlight is that if a student does lose a card, they really do need to let us know. It’s important because if you lose a card and don’t let us know, it’s still an active card. Another thing, if a student comes in and says, ‘I don’t have a credit card,’ or ‘I don’t have Apple Pay,’ we’ll take your information, and, in the past, the way dorm keys were billed is we’d send it to the comptroller’s office and they would bill,” said Leonard.
