The Hall Pass Problem: The Securely Pass system is an insult to the student body

Not again.

I heard the terrible news in my fourth hour French class. I immediately felt intense flashbacks to the greatest annoyance I had in middle school — which I thought I had escaped — but unfortunately it’s back, we have to fill out a Securely Pass to use the restroom.

As opposed to a traditional hall pass, Securely Pass is an electronic pass that students fill out on their MacBook, which their teachers then approve. The pass times how long the student is out and restricts the number of passes that can be sent to a certain location, such as the nurse, bathroom or even other classes.

As of March 24, the system is being implemented in classes at SM East that volunteered as a test-run, and according to administration, the policy may be implemented school-wide.

I spent the last two years at Indian Hills Middle School with this policy and hated every moment of it.

Even as a middle schooler, the pass system seemed insulting for someone who was just trying to use the restroom responsibly. To see it make its way into high school made me feel sick.

While I understand that some students misuse the hall passes by skipping class or being where they aren’t supposed to be, I still regularly see the halls mostly empty. I challenge you to walk out at any hour and count more than five people outside their class on any floor, in a school with over 1600 students, those are pretty good numbers.

Additionally, the students in the hallways are hardly ever causing a scene or disrupting learning — they’re just trying to go to the nurse or the restroom.

My biggest worry is that it will restrict the amount of times we can use a hall pass during the day. While this isn’t the plan at the moment, it’s still susceptible to change. When this system was used at Indian Hills, for a period of time we were restricted to three hall passes a week. Heaven forbid a student needs to go to the restroom more than three times a week.

And if the point is to eliminate disruption, this new electronic system requires teachers to march to their laptop, sign in to their account, open up Securely Pass, sign in, approve the pass, and once the student returns, end the pass. They need to do this every time a student needs to use the restroom. Even the annoyance and mundanity of writing that out made me feel irritated.

If a student needs to use the restroom while a teacher is speaking to the class, Securely Pass disrupts the entire classroom. With a regular hall pass, all the teacher needs to say is a simple yes or no — or better yet — let students go to the bathroom on their own terms like adults.

For as long as schools have been around in American society, the good ol’ fashioned hall pass or hand-raise has been the standard. It takes a whole lot of audacity to challenge a tried-and-true method. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I don’t blame the teachers who implemented it at all, I do understand why they would volunteer to cut back students misbehaving. But as someone who has had their experience with Securely Pass, I know the system’s shortcomings very well.

The new system is really just a timeless example of administrative overreach. It’s extremely reactionary and quite frankly insulting. If one of the main purposes of the school system is to prepare us for the working world, this system feels counterintuitive.

In the professional world, I would be allowed to use the restroom without my boss peeking their head over the stall and timing me, because if my coworkers were misbehaving during restroom breaks, they would deal with them without punishing the rest of the office.

Truth be told, I’m responsible for pursuing my education, and if I want to spend a few extra seconds in the restroom to relax at the risk of missing instruction, so help me God, I will.

I’m fearful this system will restrict our abilities to use the restroom to an unnecessary degree. The student body deserves the respect to be able to use the restroom without being timed and tracked.

A minuscule amount of the students at SM East misuse the hall passes, and I truly don’t believe the rest of us should be punished for their actions.