Let’s face it, we live in a world that relies so heavily on technology that the number of daily tasks that do not require it can be counted on one hand. As much as technology facilitates the workload of humans, it can be overwhelming to keep up with the constant changes made to further progress. In the business of education, being up to date with technology is imperative to make the long school day most efficient for students. 

The newest development that LHS is working to add is a new system for hall passes. Paper passes will soon be a thing of the past as hall passes are making a switch to become digital. E-hall pass is a program that is accessible to students via Class Link or a downloadable app that will completely replace paper passes that have been used since LHS opened its doors in 1965. Danyelle Brown, the assistant principal of LHS, is working to oversee the implementation of this new system.

“E-hall pass is an electronic hall pass system. It is just like the old planners and the blue passes, just done electronically which enables staff members in the building to know where students are and where they are going. Teachers can create passes for students and students can also create passes that teachers will approve,” said Brown. 

Rather than writing the time and destination on a pass, LHS staff can communicate with one another on the website, and it is efficient in the way that it automatically time-stamps the time out of class, making it easier for teachers. Since it is an entirely new program, teachers and staff are being trained on how to use the new system, starting with those who work with freshmen. Joshua Smith, the freshman academy coordinator, works to help students transition from middle school to high school to effectively earn credits and be academically prepared to become sophomores. Since they are new to high school, the introduction of the E-hall pass makes sense to start with students who are not already accustomed to the old hall passes.

“I think that what we’re doing with Freshmen Academy is a good way to work out all of the kinks, because we have 15 teachers and administrators who are using it on a daily basis, and there are a few other teachers and systems that use it throughout the school as of now. It’s allowing us to figure out how to train the kids and teachers to use it efficiently,” said Smith.

Since starting the system, Smith has noticed that he has already noticed fewer students out in the hallway roaming around. Additionally, he believes that the system will make students more attentive to how much time they spend out of the classroom, allowing them to optimize their time in the classroom. Other benefits to the E-hall pass system include limits on persons allowed in the hallways and bathrooms at once. If there are more than the allotted number of students in these places, the system will not allow another pass to be created, effectively reducing the loitering problem that is so prevalent in the LHS hallways. Also, teachers can add their out-of-office hours so students can know when they are able to come into the classroom and ask for help. 

On paper, the E-hall pass system seems like a dream come true; however, an experienced user of the system explains that there are more flaws to it than what meets the eye. Since the beginning of the school year, RHS has used the E-hall pass system, and a Spanish teacher at the high school, Stacy Svendsen, believes that even though we are only weeks into the second semester, students are still having a hard time adjusting to the new change. 

“I think everyone is still adjusting to using it.  Change is hard for people,” said Svendsen.

Aside from the new system being a big change in students’ lives, Svendsen believes that it has a few errors that need to be fixed. 

“One big issue that I have with this system is that if a student has to go to the bathroom, they have to take their Chromebook out to create a pass. If my students don’t need to have computers for the lesson, I don’t want them to have them out as a distraction. It takes time that should be otherwise used for learning,” said Svendsen. “The other way to create a pass is for the teacher to create one. I have to stop my entire lesson, go to my computer and create a pass, find which bathroom they want to go to, and then okay it.  When they are done and back in the room, I have to mark that they are back in the classroom. This is often something that I forget to do. This leads to inaccurate information on the E-pass log. So, either my class is being distracted by me creating or marking a kid ‘back to class’ or I have inaccurate information recorded in the system.”

Ideally, the E-hall pass system would extend the amount of time that teachers can use to teach, but since the system requires a pass to be requested and approved manually, Svendsen claims that it actually takes time out of her lesson. She also claims that it is getting easier for students to find loopholes around teachers asking them for proof of a pass when they are roaming around the hallways. Rather than showing said teacher a physical hall pass, students can just tell them that they have an E-hall pass, and since the system is primarily used on chromebooks, teachers cannot easily verify this claim, as most students do not carry it around the hallways.

With LHS starting the E-hall pass system in the freshmen academy, the hope is that it will create a better avenue for communication between students and staff. Even though there is no actual timeline for when the system will be fully implemented into LHS, everyone in the building should work to learn how to use it so it will reach its full potential.