As students return to BIFU for another great school year, they immediately notice the badges and accompanying sign-out sheets placed in every classroom. The hall pass policy is a new rule that was introduced to students at the very beginning of the school year. Students must wear a hall pass badge and sign out wherever they need to exit the classroom, whether it is to retrieve materials from their locker, use the restroom, or get water. The purpose of the policy is to prevent students from wandering the halls during class and minimize the number of students out of the classroom at the same time.
This new system was met with many different opinions and viewpoints from students. Questions and concerns came from multiple people in all grade levels. Yusuf Araci (7) shared his thoughts on the effectiveness and efficiency of the hall pass system.
“I think it's unnecessary. I think the signing in part could be useful, but I don't see the use for the actual hall pass because people sometimes forget to put the hall pass badge back, and it causes a commotion and distracts me from class time. I also don’t think there's a reason to state your reason for being in the hallway because it takes extra time . . . There's no information on the actual hall pass . . . [teachers/admin] don’t know if you have been wandering the halls or not . . .”
Araci made a valuable point by stating that while teachers do know the time that a student spends out of the classroom, they do not know what the student has been doing in that time period, unless another teacher or administrator sees a student wandering around and reports them.
Anna Krusius (6) pointed out an issue that Araci discussed as well: vanishing hall passes. Sometimes, the classroom that a student is leaving from does not have a hall pass next to the sign-out sheet near the door, usually because someone lost it or it was never returned to its proper place.
Krusius stated, “There are some rooms where the hall pass is gone . . . It might help if there’s a boys’ and a girls’ [hall pass] because sometimes there is a bathroom rush.” Krusius also shared her opinions about the signing out aspect of the hall pass system. “Why do they need the time to go out and come back? It’s a little intrusive.”
Different people take different amounts of time to complete certain tasks, like filling up their water bottle or getting things from their locker, so judging someone’s behavior solely based on the time they spend outside of the classroom can be unfair.
Ananya Harishankar (8) also shared her opinions on the new rule, as well as what she believes her teachers and peers think of it. “... most teachers don’t care; two students out of a time is the maximum usually. Sometimes teachers let another student leave without the hall pass . . . I think I’m kind of neutral about it, but people just think it’s excessive.”
Harishankar explained that before the hall pass, teachers would usually let students leave class two at a time. She said that some of her teachers still do this, letting another student leave without the hall pass. Having two hall passes might be a potential way to solve this problem, as Krusius suggested.
The hall pass policy evoked many different opinions and strong feelings from students of BIFU. Overall, the new rule was not met with much outward backlash, but students have expressed that they find some aspects of the hall pass unnecessary or excessive. Nevertheless, our school is adjusting to the policy, joining the many other schools in the U.S. that use a successful hall pass system.