Liberty High School has traditionally allowed students to leave the classroom via a laminated piece of paper on a string for 10 minutes at a time. Now, administrators are reevaluating the hallway pass system due to a high volume of students being out of class during instructional time.
According to the Liberty High School Student Handbook, it is mandatory for a student in the hallway to have a standard hall pass in their possession at all times. It is also required for Liberty staff to monitor the hallways during passing periods.
The handbook states that, “Hallways/Common Areas Students are expected to exhibit safe behavior when present in the hallways and common areas. Activities such as horseplay are prohibited and continued violations may result in disciplinary action.”
The handbook also explains that any violations of these rules could result in discipline upon the administrator’s discretion.
The administration’s priority is student safety and ensuring optimal contact time between teacher and students. Dean Steven Kynor, who previously taught history and was the interim dean at Timberview Middle School before accepting a dean position at Liberty, said, “One thing that we’re seeing with a building with 1,600 kids is a lot of kids who are in the hallways, some of them with passes, some of them without passes, sometimes going places they’re supposed to be going, other times not.”
According to Kynor, the administration team is still in the assessment phase of implementing a new system. “So what we’re looking at is ways we can streamline that process to make sure kids are going where they’re supposed to go, and making sure that we have better tracking to identify kids who aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” Kynor said.
Possible solutions to the issue of students skipping class include hall monitors most likely being teachers on their planning periods, school wide consequences for skipping classes and electronic hall passes.
Some schools have shifted away from traditional paper passes and have opted for a digital system of tracking students’ time away from the classroom. NBC covered schools’ use of an electronic hallway pass system, in which students at a school in Wisconsin were against the policy. The students, who were limited to seven trips to the bathroom a week, said they felt “punished.”
CBS reported that for one school district in Dallas, Texas, electronic hall passes led to a “66% decrease in classroom disruptions, a 57% decrease in fights and a 75% decrease in bullying.”
“The beauty of [an electronic hallway pass] is we’re able to see in real time where students are supposed to be in the hallway,” Kynor said.
Students have conflicting opinions about how their trips out of the classroom are monitored. Some students find online passes unnecessary, citing the only real benefit being the lack of a physical pass that they must carry around the school.
“I could see the system helping teachers. Lots of [students] lose their paper ones,” freshman Ella Phillips said. “It doesn’t seem necessary. Just use the normal passes; it’s much easier that way. I hate when I go into the bathroom and there’s just a crowd of people. It’s disrespectful to all the students there to learn to make all of us get punished for their lazy actions.”
Sophomore Addison Miller-Ienatsch added, “I think hall passes would cut down on waste from physical passes that get ruined. I think the system that we already use works fine.”
As of Oct. 24, the administration is still exploring possible solutions to curb students roaming the hallways.
