ScholarChip, a provider of smart ID solutions for schools, has announced the release of its new School Safety and Operations (SSOS) platform for NFC-enabled mobile phones.

The SSOS platform includes Android applications for taking attendance in classrooms and on school buses, monitoring hall traffic, paying for public transportation, making mobile payments and ticketing for extracurricular events.

With SSOS, a student is issued a secure contactless token that consolidates a wallet, keys and ID cards into one card, which can now be read using an NFC-enabled mobile phone.

For example, a student traveling to school in the morning can pay for a transit fare by tapping the token against an NFC phone on the school bus, or a contactless reader on the public bus or at the subway turnstile. When the student gets to school, they can tap the token to check in at an entry kiosk, enabling teachers and administrators to know that the student has arrived safely.

The student can then check-in to various classes by tapping the token against an NFC phone or kiosk, thereby automating the attendance process for teachers. At lunch, the student can use the token to register attendance in the cafeteria or tap her card against a point-of-sale reader to pay for a meal or snack. For special events, such as dances and football games, school staff can use NFC phones to monitor entry by authorized students.

According to ScholarChip, the NFC applications are compatible with all 700,000 of the company’s smart tokens – including cards, fobs and tags – currently used in schools.