Imagine: you’re sitting in your history class and you’re ready to take the end-of-year exam. Stress manifests as sweaty hands that grip a now warm mechanical pencil and you can’t focus. You’ve had to pee for the last 25 minutes, but there’s already someone out with a pass, and there’s no sign they’ll come back soon.
To teachers and staff, hallway traffic regulation seems to be a bigger concern than ever. The rules around hall passes have changed numerous times.
In the past, we’ve had a variety of hall passes, each with its own issues. Last year, we used laminated hall passes on lanyards, color coded to the floor of the classroom they were from. There were quite a few issues with this system. It was very easy for someone to take the pass and simply leave for extended periods of time, which meant there were often large groups of people in the halls, being loud and disruptive and missing their own classes. Teachers didn’t always know when people were leaving with the pass, and passes often got lost or destroyed. The implementation of a sign out sheet helped a little, but many students simply refused or forgot to use the sign out sheet.
This year, we’ve employed destination passes as our hall pass system. The destination pass was designed by Dean of Students Mr. Powell. According to him, the destination passes were created to “promote student and staff safety, better structure hallway and bathroom usage, encourage student engagement and learning, help students develop lifelong time management skills and positive habits to cope with stress, sustain engagement, and rigorous content, and help students understand when it is and is not appropriate to leave the classroom.” The real question is whether this goal has been achieved.
I interviewed a few students and teachers for their opinions on the matter. In general, teachers seemed to like the destination passes, and students mostly disliked them. A recurring theme among teacher responses was that it made it easier to keep track of students and to limit hallway noise and traffic. One teacher said that they like that “people have to ask for a pass, and that they’re pretty good at waiting for a good time to ask for a pass as opposed to grabbing the lanyard at any time like previous years.” Other teachers said that they love that “fewer students are leaving class, they’re spending less time out, and that there is less kerfuffle in the halls.”, and that the passes “help [them] remember who has left the room since students need to talk to [them] to get one. Also, students are more likely to wait for an appropriate time to ask to leave the room.” Another teacher likes “that it’s not something laminated students can carry around. It has a date and a time on it, so it’s easier to see how long students are out for.”
Of course, nothing is perfect, and the teachers also have complaints. The main complaint was that destination passes are an interruption to class, and that the teachers have to stop what they’re doing to sign passes. The other issue that was brought up was how wasteful the passes are. The teachers’ consensus was that they “hope we won’t have to use these passes forever and that people can use regular bathroom passes more responsibly.”
Student opinions generally contrasted with the opinions of the teachers and staff. Based on interviews with a variety of students, as well as casual conversations with many more, the student body seems to collectively agree that destination passes are annoying and sometimes frustrating, though not ALL bad. One student said that they “like that these passes feel more professional”, and another said that “the required teacher signature does help stop people from randomly leaving class”. However, there was also an abundance of complaints. One student was concerned that they “hate how disruptive destination passes are, you have to interrupt the teacher and the class basically to use the bathroom which is super awkward. It also creates a huge amount of waste, so much paper is being used. Another thing I don’t like is how you have to get the destination pass signed and then you also have to use the sign-out sheet right after. It’s a huge waste of time.” Another student said, “The passes prevent emergencies from being handled- if you need to throw up, or have a period emergency, or just really need to use the bathroom, you CAN’T leave until the teacher lets you. I don’t want to bleed through my favorite pants because the teacher has to finish the lesson or there’s a line for the bathroom.” The students’ overall consensus was that destination passes are not ideal or optimal, but they seem to be the most viable option at the moment. One student said that destination passes are “not that effective, but what else can we do?”
One of the worst issues with the destination passes, according to students and teachers alike, is the waste of paper. I asked a few of my teachers to keep a tally of how many destination passes got used in their classes each period for a week. The average number of passes used per period (excluding the short Wednesday classes) was 6.2. That may not sound like that much, but let me project some bigger numbers. The majority of teachers here teach five classes. According to the staff directory, we have 75 teachers at Shorecrest. So, excluding Wednesdays, that’s 10 classes a week per teacher, times 6.2 passes per class. That makes 4,650 passes a week. There are about 36 weeks in the school year. This amounts to a grand total of 167,400 passes a year, excluding Wednesdays and Highlander Home. That’s 1,883 pounds of paper. This is an enormous amount of waste. It was unclear how much the school pays for destination passes, but one can infer that 167,400 passes a year amount to a significant cost, which is especially harmful during the ongoing budget crisis.
There are a few options going forward. We could stick with the sub-optimal destination pass. We could go back to the previously laminated lanyards, but last year proved that those aren’t great either. Ideally, we will find a new solution, and continue to move forward and improve our hall pass. Mr. Powell says, “We are always evaluating and re-assessing our school systems. That is the power of change, and we will continue to make changes that best serve students and their development.” I encourage the administration staff, teachers, and students alike to continue brainstorming new ideas and working towards finding the best possible hall pass option.
