The new “E-hall pass” system, where students have to fill passes out to leave the class, has left the school divided with opinions concerning if it’s actually helping the “problem.” 

     “I feel like it has put even more of a division between the teachers and the students, and it feels more like a control device than anything as a hall pass. I think it is, I don’t want to say ‘stupid’ but I want to say ‘stupid’ and that it lacks a purpose,” Junior Natalie Smith said.

     Some students have had more of a negative response to the new system while the administration and most teachers like the    E-hall pass. 

     “With it being so new, I wouldn’t say there’s a negative response in any way (from the teachers), if anything it’s been overwhelmingly positive. It’s been more a matter of questions, case in point substitutes, well there actually is a process for that and from the office side of things we assign codes to substitutes, every substitute receives their own code so that they can issue passes, but classroom teachers didn’t know that. So I won’t say it’s been a negative response, just questions to line out all the details. It’s been a learning curve, like everything else, we don’t know what we don’t know, and we’re all learning together, sometimes learning in public, and sometimes that’s uncomfortable for the adults because when students ask how it works, you feel like you should have an answer as opposed to finding out together, but I’ve gotten more comfortable saying “let’s find out together”,” Assistant principal Rosemary Camp said.  

     Figuring out how to work a new system is challenging and time-consuming along with the fact that students and teachers versus the administration are seeing completely different sides of how the system is actually working, or not working.

    “It’s even more of a distraction rather than just asking to go to the bathroom, having to ask my teacher “Hey did you get my request to go to the bathroom?”, and none of them are that good at using the system or we can’t get connection in the room. Just have to stop everything I’m doing to work it out then go to the bathroom when by the time usually that we’ve done all this stuff I could’ve gone to the bathroom and been back by that time,” Smith said.

     While on the contrary, Dr. Camp believes that the new E-hall pass system is more efficient than the per se ‘old’ way of leaving the classroom. 

     “I think the E-hall pass will help with string line communication, I think once it gets fully implemented and everybody is buying into using the system, like anything else, the system only works if we all work the system, it will make it a lot easier for a student in the middle of a class that needs to leave for some reason it won’t disrupt instruction because the teacher can simply enter the code and approve the pass on their laptop as they are continuing to teach so it becomes seamless, as opposed to stopping what their doing to fill out a pass for a student and the other students didn’t get instruction in that moment. So, I feel like it will let everyone to continue to do business the way we need to do business in school but still keeps those lines of communication open so I can take care of the things I need to as a student and the adults can communicate that pretty easily,” Dr. Camp said.

     The E-hall pass was created not just for students leaving the classroom but for safety and security purposes.

     “E-hall pass really came out of a variety of things, one we recognize that we live in the 21st century and we were using some fairly ancient tools. Paper passes were a thing when I was in high school, we knew we could do better, we’re always looking to innovate what we do here at Liberty North. Second thing, it’s a matter of security because we know we live in a society where some bad things happen in schools and we want to be able to, in the moment, have a good idea of where everyone is. Also on the safety and security side of things, in that, if a parent shows up and says that their student has to check out, because our schedule has that flex hour built-in this also gives some immediate access from school personnel to the student to say, “Hey please come to the office to be checked out” so with that communication we’d be able to shore that up. Then really the third this is that we know we’ve really seen an uptick, probably because of flex and schools looking a bit different in the post-covid world, we’ve seen an uptick in tardies and truancies so we want to assist our security team and the administrators to know whose supposed to be where and maybe who needs help getting to class or to their flex zone. So, a way of shoring up all the communication between all the adults and all the students,” Dr. Camp said. 

     While Smith, along with most of the school, is attempting to use the E-hall pass, though some don’t like it, some students that influenced the decision to start the new system aren’t even trying to use it.

     “I feel like a lot of people don’t like it and I think that now there’s no trust and only that a small amount of people really were the ones that misused it (the freedom of just asking to leave the classroom) in the first place and I feel like the people that are being ‘penalized’ aren’t the ones that were the issue; and the ones that are still having the issue aren’t even using e-hall pass and are just being gone for a really long period of time so I don’t really think it benefits anything it just records how long you’re gone, which a teacher could easily do by themselves without a pass needed,” Smith said.

    Smith Isn’t alone in feeling this way about the E-hall pass, many students have agreed with the points she has made. 

     “At the end of the day I feel like e-hall pass is just an inconvenience and I don’t think the excuse that just because every school district around us is doing it means we have to, because I just think Liberty North should have like a level of trust and just because other schools don’t have that with their students doesn’t mean we shouldn’t and we’re not the same. Each school has its own individual issues and I don’t really think that e-hall pass is going to be the thing that helps our school out with our issues in comparison to what it might help other schools with,” Smith said.