All schools today have a pass system, and there has been much argument about what the best one is. Many students prefer a more independent system while administrators are looking for a more rigid program. Our high school uses the system SmartPass.
What is Smartpass? It’s a new pass system that was created in 2018, in hope to create a better and much easier way for students to leave the class without interrupting it. This new system would stop the waste of paper for each pass and would take the system online to the students and teachers school devices. There are many different benefits from using this new system of passes, but that doesn’t mean that the system is perfect either.
So that brought us to the question: why did our school choose SmartPass? After talking with Ashley Harbel, An Administrator at TRHS, we learned we chose smartpass for many reasons, one of them being, “It is just an online version of a paper pass”.
Nowadays, so much is digital. So it makes sense that the pass system is digital too. We also learned that while using SmartPass makes it easier for teachers and administrators to know where people are, the use of SmartPass is better from a school safety standpoint. Administration has also recognized that sometimes the wifi doesn’t work, making the system inefficient. So while SmartPass isn’t perfect, it does provide a safer and more efficient system than the alternative.
We turned to fellow students and teachers to hear what they had to say about it. After discussing with teachers, we have heard many many positive things. The very few negatives we have heard include, “it takes time out of the class… the teacher has to stop for the pass.” But besides that, we have heard the overall happiness with the passes.
The passes make it easy to keep track of kids, gives a summary of that child’s time out of class, and provides other helpful data.
When turning to students, they had a different take on SmartPass. One student mentioned, “you have to wait in line… for a long time”. The issue with the line was also brought up as a negative from 6/8 kids interviewed. Others also wished that the bathroom spots didn’t get filled up so quickly.
Although most students reacted by saying “they don’t like it,” “It is stupid”, “There is no point”. A couple students understood that there wouldn’t be a system that will make everyone happy. They just would like the system to be more accessible to those who use it correctly.Students leaned more towards the negative side of the pass system while teachers thought of it in a more positive way.
Some suggestions after listening to our peers and administrators were to make it so that students can only send a pass to the closest bathrooms to their room.
Another big recommendation coming from the students is to not have to wait in line. But still keeping in mind the purpose we think that those who use the pass correctly (staying within the time limit, aren’t found wandering,etc.) should be allowed to not have the wait in line feature while those who have been deemed to use the pass wrong should be the only ones who should wait in line.
Another problem arising among administrators is when kids will end their pass before actually being in class. This will make it look like the kid has not gone over on SmartPass when in reality the student has been out of class for too long, another adjustment suggestion that should be made is teachers should end students’ passes when they come back to class.
To explore the different ways it is done the authors went to Salem High School (SHS) to discover their pass system. At SHS they have a paper sheet in the room, when a student wants to leave they write their name, where they are going, and then the time they leave and arrive back to class. When walking in the halls they only need a paper pass saying what class they belong to. After talking with students from SHS overall they had the same opinion. One student in particular says, “I like that I can have my own freedom with passes”.
When getting opinions from teachers and administrators they also had positive feedback. The teachers’ main response was, “I like that students can sign in and out without disturbing class” and “The one physical paper helps keep track of what student is out.”
Overall The pass systems have pros and cons but it seems like Salem is doing great with the old school paper system, after many interviews nothing was said negative about it. After getting multiple opinions on SmartPass at Timberlane we have found that we do in fact need a pass system and SmartPass has its pros and cons like everything. After presenting opinions of fellow members of TRHS we hope that it will build a picture of what we do and what we can do differently.
