By: Megan Gee & Tabitha Drover
In most Homer High School classes kids have unlimited hall passes and just get the class pass and leave with the teacher’s permission. Lately a new pass has been put into place in Mrs.Webb and Mrs.Thompson’s classes. The pass limits the students so they can only leave class a certain amount of times during the semester. With Mrs.Webb’s passes students may only leave four times. But with Mrs.Thompson’s passes students may leave eight times.
Mrs. Webb, said when she first started teaching she had students leaving the classroom everyday. She then decided to limit the amount of times students could leave the classroom to stop the abuse of the pass.
Mrs.Thompson, a science teacher who implements the limited hall passes, said “I had people abusing the pass. People were taking their cell cell phones and leaving for the bathroom for 10 minutes. “I got tired of trying to battle it, so I limited the passes,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Some students need to go to the nurses more ofter then others actually need to, so I let those people just take the regular pass.” Do all people feel it’s fair?
Some students do not approve and feel it causes discomfort for kids who actually have to use the bathroom but can’t because they’ve used all of their passes. Robert Hockema, freshman, said, “I think it’s pretty stupid. You can’t expect students to not need to go to their lockers at all and have everything ready for class. 4-5 minutes typically isn’t enough. Plus, we have bladders. The teachers decide when we need to go to the bathroom, so the ‘you have plenty of time during the break’ thing doesn’t work.”
Limited hall passes has not had a great effect on some other students, however. Sophomore Rachael Doan said the limited passes has no effect on her whatsoever. She feels she can still go to the bathroom or get a drink of water whenever she needs. Most of the time she said she never uses her passes.
Students do not seem to have a problem having a limited number of hall passes. They can use the restroom during the 5 and 10 minute breaks given between classes and at lunch. The hall passes are just there to lean on when they need an item out of their locker, or a quick stop at the bathroom. The passes did not make them feel like they could not use the bathroom, it just put a limit to how much class time they are missing.