Certain policies allow Rock Ridge High School to have a less tight grip on their students than other high schools in the county.  For example, some schools like Loudoun Valley High School don’t allow students to use their phones in classes at all. However, students at our school are allowed to keep their phones and have greater personal responsibility. Up until now, we have even been allowed to sign out of class just by a sheet of paper and a plastic pass. 

However, after a recent threat to student safety, our school is planning to shift to an electronic sign-out system after winter break. Some administrators believe that this new system will quickly identify students who send those threats. However, the school has multiple cameras and hall sign-out sheets where they could identify someone if they threatened to do something harmful. 

One concern with sign-out sheets has been that some students simply ignore them and do not sign out, but a way to alleviate that would be to require students to write their names on a whiteboard, showing that they’re leaving the classroom. Getting away with not writing on a whiteboard would be much harder than a sign-out sheet because it’s much more public. That way, every movement someone makes won’t get tracked, but if something harmful happens, then it will be easier to track the source down later.

Moreover, if a student truly plans to do damage, it will be hard for “Pass” to identify them if it’s not during class time. There will be a good chance that they will put up the sign during a transition period, break, before school, or after school. “Pass” won’t be able to track them then. Therefore, it feels more like a punishment to all of the students who follow the rules than a prevention for dangerous activities. 

Along with the fact that this new system won’t be very effective at preventing harm or vandalism, it will also cause more distractions during class. In the past, we have been able to simply ask a teacher if we can go to the bathroom and they’d simply let us sign out on a sheet of paper. Their teaching wouldn’t completely get interrupted. However, “Pass” will require them to use their computer to approve signing out even if they are in the middle of teaching. That brings the potential to detract their entire conversation and even forget what they’re teaching about once the lesson starts.

Not only will the use of online passes create more disruptions during class, but it will also make many students feel stressed and uneasy. “I don’t like the timing they have on e-hall passes because when a person goes to the bathroom or wherever for a long time, they usually come back and get reprimanded, but you don’t know what the reason is that they were in there for that long,” freshman Chela Hess said. “So it’s really not the school’s place to get upset over something that maybe the student needed to take care of.”

Most students are responsible and don’t purposely leave class for long. When the pass times them, they will get stressed thinking about the time they have left when they walk in the hallway and do what they need to. “When we had E-hall passes in Stone Hill it just felt really personal and unnecessary,” senior Maggie Miller said. “For example, people walk at different speeds and paces, so I didn’t really like it then and I think for high school it just doesn’t make any sense. It’ll unnecessarily make people worried that security will come to search for them even if they’re a minute over time without meaning to.”

Everyone who’s done as they’ve been asked so far should have the chance to be trusted to leave class and be back without being timed. “Some students may be irresponsible with passes, but I just feel like E-hall passes don’t give us any personal responsibility,” junior Zahra Amusa said. Creating a new technological pass system to prevent threats will only be like a small band-aid covering a large wound. When this new system gets implemented, every student will have to follow many of the restrictions that were previously only for students who had hallway restrictions. No one should get restricted just because there are too many people in the hallways at one time or because of a couple of other students.