The new school year also calls for new rules to be enforced. One new rule introduced this year is wearing physical hall passes. When students leave the room, they are now required to request an online pass, in addition to wearing a physical lanyard pass around their neck for the duration of their absence to be considered excused.
The purpose of this is to keep track of students in the hallways to make sure they are going to the proper place and not wandering around. For administrators, this is convenient because it helps to know where students are going without having to ask.
Principal Chad Nulik has found this super helpful and effective.
“It’s actually been really helpful because we actually know where people are going, and when they are wearing it, we don’t have to ask them all the time where they are going, because we know where they are going. It just helps it move quicker, ” Nulik said.
With the passes being color-coded, it is also beneficial and helps save time.
“If they have that pass, we know where they are supposed to go, which is why I like that they are color-coded. When they go to the bathroom, it is this color, and when they are going to the office or nurse it is that color,” Nulik said.
So far, students have shown a dislike for the passes, finding them inconvenient and unsanitary. Junior Mabel Wall said these passes are a bit much. Having to make both online passes as well as taking a lanyard pass is unnecessary. It affects how often she leaves class, where leaving also feels restrictive. “I think it’s just stupid [and] I think teachers just really don’t know how to handle kids, and so they freak out and overcompensate,” Wall said.
While this is an administration decision and not a teacher decision, many students of all grade levels have similar opinions about the new hall pass rules. Sophomore Emma-Jean Werdann said the physical passes feel restrictive since they only allow for one student out at a time. This is a new rule to most students since, in previous years, they were allowed one boy and one girl out at a time.
“I think it’s disgusting how we just go back and forth with it. Boys are touching it, and we don’t even put it around our necks; we just carry it in our hands,” Werdann said.
With the passes being new, it is frustrating for some of the students who have already come to this school without this rule. Senior Jaymie Turner said that the pass rules in the past were less strict and more comfortable.
“I don’t like them. I like them better how it was freshman year when we didn’t have to wear lanyards, because that’s gross,” Turner said.
