Te c h Te n s i o n Truths, sentiments about e-hallpass
T
ick, tick, tick. Your cellphone is continuously counting down waiting to alert your teachers when the timer strikes 10 minutes. The new time oriented hall pass implemented this year is called e-hallpass. Students are obligated to use e-hallpass whenever they leave the classroom, causing an uproar of discontent from the student body. The School’s new tracking system, e-hallpass, is a direct result of parents, teachers and students voicing their discomfort with the lenient nature of the school environment last year. E-hallpass allows communication between teachers and their students and has a feature that lets students know when teahers are “out of office” or unavailable to assist. “From a student’s perspective, knowing where a teacher is going to be and being able to expect and predict where a teacher is going to be if they need help is helpful,” Principal Sue Ross said. Although e-hallpasses are effective at allowing better communication, student body have voiced concern. The interruption caused by e-hallpass during class time is an encumbrance on both teachers and students.
“
It is not a good switch from last year. I know we need more regulations, but there are easier and better ways to regulate if people are where they are and where they say they are going. -Senior Alice Roberts
”
According to junior Lukas Clites, E-hallpass also makes getting water difficult for athletes in the school,
4
THEVIKINGNEWS.COM
Layout | Jennings Felt
BY ABBY KEANE
which affects their performance at practices. “I’m an athlete, Clites said “although I’m not a good athlete, I still need to hydrate, and I can’t do that easily. Whenever I have to get a pass, it distracts the teacher a lot and takes away from them teaching a lesson.” Another obstacle for students is creating an e-hallpass in the first place, because of the limited phone use in classrooms. “You aren’t allowed to use your phone in class, but you have to use your phone for an e-hallpass to go to the bathroom.” Junior Kate Brennan said. “How am I supposed to use the pass if I can’t go on my phone. This is the predicament I have.” Students aren’t the only ones voicing their concern. Teachers are worried about the amount of time it takes up, especially during Viking Time, but they don’t mind using the normal blocks. “I like it during regular school blocks like block 1,2,3,4,5 etc. biology teacher Taylour Hudson said. “However, I do think it’s more of a hindrance during Viking Time, as we do have a very limited amount of time to meet with students for academic purposes.” E-hallpass isn’t the only new feature. There are now hall monitors, or teachers that sit in the hallway checking for e-hallpasses, that were put in place because of the reoccuring vaping issues from last year. Hall monitors prevent students from leaving for the first and last 10 minutes of class. This protocol accommodates for the time it takes the monitors to get to their posts. “A big part of what I heard, mostly from students last year, is the vaping in the bathrooms,” Ross said. “So we did need to find a way to monitor the restrooms without being intrusive, and so that’s why we went
with hall monitors,” To the dismay of some students and teachers, this new tracking system isn’t going anywhere because it allows for greater safety and communication than traditional passes. “If we were to have a crisis or an incident, we’re missing someone,” Ross said. If we just had paper passes, we wouldn’t know kind of where that person was. Whereas with e-hallpass, we’d at least know where he signed out from and where he was headed to, so it just gives us more information to work with.” Although safety and communication are improved with e-hallpass, some senior Alice Roberts think that the administration went to the extreme, with the tracking of students from last year’s free-form nature to the current tracking. “It is not a good switch from last year.” Roberts said. “I know we need more regulations, but there are easier and better ways to regulate if people are where they are and where they say they are going.” Last year, more freedoms were available. However, administration thought teachers and students abused these liberties, forcing them to come up with alternatives. “We tried some things last year,” Ross said. “We did try some additional freedoms that kind of worked out okay first semester, but a few students and a few teachers actually kind of went outside the boundaries, and so then we had to pull things back.”
