For the past couple of months, Sahuaro has been using a program within Synnergy for students’ hall passes. Students would log in to StudentVue, click Request Pass, choose the room and how long they need, and then a teacher would approve it. The idea was that students would carry their IDs with them, and monitors would be able to scan them to see if they had an approved pass. Due to an unidentified glitch, Synnergy’s system is down, and we’re unable to use it for hall passes currently.
Sahuaro’s solution is to have each teacher have a large, neon, laminated hall pass that students could carry. Something that wasn’t considered, though, is the fact that inside the bathrooms, there is no place for students to put the pass while using the toilet. Students must hold and balance it, or try to stick it in a crack in the stall and hope it doesn’t fall out. This fails to consider students who may have an injury or disability and can only use one arm at a time, or female students on their period who may need both hands at once.
From a student’s perspective, Jago Gamez-Mendoza says, “I personally think it’s pretty dumb because I think when multiple people need to do it, [Use the bathroom] like a girl and a boy or whatever, it doesn’t really matter. I saw someone not even that long ago saying that she really needed to go, but she couldn’t because only one boy and one girl was allowed.”
The passes aren’t made with only students in mind; they also keep our staff as a priority when choosing a new pass design, too. They are intended to be bright and visible so that staff can distinguish whether a student has one or not.
One of our monitors, Ty, comments, “I think the hall pass system is working great as a monitor. It’s nice to be able to see where the students are coming from with their color-coordinated pass, so it makes it super easy for us. So overall, I think it’s great.”
While some people say it’s great and some say it’s horrible, some just think it needs some adjustments to thrive.
Mrs. Dara shares, “I think that the new hall passes are a very simple, easy-to-use way for all Sahuaro staff to be able to see if a student is supposed to be out of class or not. I think there are some tweaks that need to be made for next year to the pass, a little bit more convenient for students, but I think overall the idea is a good one.”
Sahuaro is unsure if we’ll continue this pass system into next year, or whether Synergy’s system will be fixed by then, but hopefully, we will have a pass system that is easily identifiable for staff, and easy to use for students!
