Cleared4 scanners face challenges districtwide

In the first week of Valley’s spring semester, the implementation of the Cleared4 scanning stations was off to a rocky start.

By Natalie Metcalf, Staff Writer

A QR code scanner sits atop a desk placed within the hall of the Humanities building. (Jeremy Ruiz / The Valley Star)

All scanning stations across the district malfunctioned on Feb. 10, while individual Cleared4 QR code scanners have been glitching since the beginning of the semester.

On Thursday at 9:56 am, students received an email saying that QR code scanning stations were down. Then at 10:38 am, scanning stations were back up and running, according to the district. During that time students were asked to fill out their symptom self-check on their Cleared4 account. Individual scanners at Valley malfunctioned since Feb. 7.

“In my opinion, the choice to partner with a company that on [the] surface level seems illegitimate causes the Los Angeles Community College Board more harm than good,” said first year student Sarah Ruttan, who works with emails in her daily job as a Lead Records Clerk at a medical insurance company.

Students and faculty are required to complete a self-check screening before entering any of the nine LACCD campuses. Once completed, students receive a QR code which then needs to be scanned before accessing any facilities. Emails and text messages from Cleared4 are sent to students Monday through Sunday, regardless of when any of the nine college campuses are open.

“The emails look like spam,” said Ruttan. “[Cleared4 wasn’t] made clear by the school board in general that I [did not know] they were [a] legit site.”

According to Valley’s website, Cleared4 check-in stations are placed in every working building on campus. However, there are only scanning stations in 10 out of the 24 buildings. As of right now there are no scanning stations in the Cafeteria, Math, Science and Engineering buildings.

Acting Associate Dean Cecilia Cruz said the administration does not have access to any aggregated data or historical information about past check-ins. Reports generated by Cleared4 only include a snapshot of a particular date and time.

“I get checked in for my classes,” said baseball player Ryan Monreal. “So I don’t have to worry about getting checked in for baseball.”

Valley is hiring office assistants to help make sure that students fill out their symptom self-check and scan their QR code before entering the campus. The hiring process for Valley’s new office assistants started on Feb. 11.

“Our focus will be bringing students into compliance, so we’ll be doing our best to work with the students,” said President Barry Gribbons.

Other institutions are finding other methods to make sure students and faculty are testing negative and have received a full vaccination. UCLA has their students fill out a symptom questionnaire, which is generated by UCLA rather than an outside company like Cleared4.

“In many ways it's much simpler for us given that we don't have dorms on campus, we are operating in person classes at a limited capacity in addition to requiring vaccination and masking.'' said Gribbons.