Perkiomen Valley High School institutes a new hall pass for the 2023-2024 year – a digital hall pass. For students to go anywhere like the bathroom or the office, they must log into StudentVue on their phone and sign up digitally before leaving the classroom.
“It’s much easier to click on a button and approve a pass as opposed to having to write out a timely physical pass for students,” Mrs. Riehl, a twelfth grade English teacher, said.
To submit a digital pass, a student must log into StudentVue, go to the top right corner and tap the hall pass button. Then, a student has to identify the specific location they are going, how long they plan to be gone and an additional message if applicable. All hall passes have a maximum time limit of 5 minutes. After the request is sent, a student must wait for the teacher to approve it on their end of StudentVue.
Since the start of the year, conversation has been aroused among students and teachers about this small, yet significant change. Students and faculty have had varied responses; some people believe that the new digital format is a lot quicker and easier, but others feel it is annoying and difficult.
Kissel, the financial literacy teacher, believes that digital hall passes will save time in the long run. “Once the system gets rolling all I have to do is just a click as opposed to signing and filling out passes,” Mrs. Kissel said.
However, she does issue concerns about how the pass will work on extended homeroom days and altered schedules. “The digital hall pass does not work in the last five minutes of a period so if the bell schedule is different it may not work,” Mrs. Kissel said.
Some students said that they are “Team Yellow Pass”; however, all 3 of the students interviewed added that they have not used the digital passes yet. Seniors Cole Lester and Sean Schoeninger claimed that yellow passes are traditional, justifying their appeal. Paper passes are familiar and simple, while students and teachers will need time to adjust to the digital passes; time that could distract from learning. Senior Natalie Min went on to say that she favors the yellow passes but recognizes the issue of killing trees that accompanies the continued usage of paper passes.
The debate between yellow and digital passes is split among students and staff; with some preferring how the yellow passes are original, but as of now, it seems like digital passes are here to stay.