Whether you love it or hate it, you’ve most likely had to use the Digital Hall Pass (DHP) this year. The DHP consists of a Google Form in which students specify their current and intended location. If you’re a student, you’ve used this system anytime you travel from one place in the building to another during school hours. If you’re a teacher, you’ve either instructed students to use the system or monitored the hallways to ensure students are going where they are supposed to. Either way, at some point in time you may have found this system to be an inconvenience. On account of this, why have it in the first place? After all, CHS has done just fine in all of its previous years without it.
According to the administration, the main purpose of the system is to aid in maintaining attendance during emergency situations. Its secondary and more common purpose is minimizing the time students spend outside the classroom. So, does the system achieve these goals?
The answer to this is nuanced. If an emergency were to occur, the DHP is beneficial as the police or the CHS administration could actively use the form to locate missing students. However, a recent survey of students expressing their experiences with the DHP showed most feel as though the system has not succeeded. In fact, 45.1% of students feel as though the system does not assist in tracking students during emergency situations, while only 25.6% feel as though it does (the remaining 29.3% expressed being neutral). This adds on to the fact that more than half of surveyed students reported having significant or frequent difficulties with the system. Astonishingly, of the 747 students surveyed, only 13 reported having a very positive experience with the system. The main issue students have with the DHP is that after years of being able to leave the room directly after receiving permission from a teacher, they now have to spend extra time filling out a form. In short, although it may appear helpful, most students do not like the system, nor do they find it useful.
Despite these criticisms, the system is here to stay. The CHS staff have indicated that rather than removing the system entirely like many students have suggested, they plan on improving it. These improvements include consolidating the form and potentially allowing students to complete the forms on their phones during the lunch block. Another proposed suggestion, implementing a student ID swiping system instead, would likely fix many of the issues, but is unfortunately outside of budgetary constraints. Additionally, given that the students aren’t in the position of utilizing the DHP for safety concerns, the system likely improves safety more than accounted for by the survey. Thus, sacrificing an additional 20 seconds to leave the room is a reasonable trade off for increasing our safety. At the end of the day, although possibly an inconvenience, the Digital Hall Pass is generally innocuous and hopefully will be improved in the upcoming months in a manner more agreeable to students and staff.