If you’re considering implementing a digital hall pass in your school, you may be wondering if it’s really worth the cost and effort.

There’s no denying that the traditional methods of requesting, approving, and tracking paper hall passes are inefficient and wasteful. A digital hall pass system automates these processes to save time, reduce paperwork, and alleviate administrative burdens.

Simplified and streamlined hall pass management is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Why else would you want to switch to a digital hall pass?

Here are four questions to deepen your understanding of the many ways a digital hall pass can improve your school culture and climate.

1) Do you know for sure which students are using hall passes at any time?

Using unreliable and inefficient processes like sign-in clipboards and paper passes to control student movement is fraught with pitfalls. You can’t confidently know which students are out of class at any given time, let alone control student movement effectively.

A digital hall pass system addresses these issues by first making it easier for students to request hall passes. Students can easily request passes to specific locations, such as the bathroom or school nurse, using their laptop, desktop computer, iPad, cell phone, or other internet-connected device. The teacher receives the request on their device and can quickly approve or deny it with a click of a button.

The pass is now active in the system, giving you a real-time record of which students are using passes and for which locations. Active passes are visible to any staff member or teacher with access to the system, so if someone notices a student in the hallway during a class period, they can quickly verify if the student has an active and approved pass.

2) Is your school experiencing student vaping, vandalism, or other risky student behaviors and misconduct?

If you’re responsible for middle and high schoolers, you’re no stranger to the vaping problem. It’s estimated that 10% of 10-18 year olds use tobacco, and 2.8 million kids smoke e-cigarettes specifically.  

A digital hall pass that lets you specify the approved location and set a pass expiration helps you limit students’ opportunities to engage in risky or undesirable behaviors. If an incident does occur, such as vaping or vandalism, a digital hall pass provides a record of the students using hall passes at that time so you can investigate. 

These records also give you the ability to identify trends in individual or group behavior. You can identify “frequent flyers” who are misusing or abusing hall passes and enforce limitations on their hall pass usage. Should you need to broach a student’s behavior with their family, you have reliable electronic documentation of their hall pass usage history as validation of your concerns.

3) Do you feel confident you can quickly account for students in an emergency or crisis?

If you’ve ever lost sleep worrying about how your school would survive a crisis, you know how important it is to have peace of mind that you’re doing everything possible to protect your community.

It isn’t realistic to expect that digital hall passes alone can keep students safe. But they can help you quickly muster and account for students in a crisis or emergency. With real-time information about which students are using hall passes and for which locations, you know where students are at any given time so you can more quickly account for everyone if needed. 

With greater control of student movement, you can also avoid the need to take measures that create unsafe conditions. As a prime example, some schools have started locking bathrooms as a way to prevent vaping and vandalism. In doing so, however, they are creating avoidable safety risks to staff and students. 

Imagine that your school has an active shooter situation, and your students and staff are unable to access the bathrooms for shelter because they’re locked. This very situation was one of the safety failures found by the safety commission who investigated the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting that occurred in February 2018.

With a digital hall pass, you can impose limitations and restrictions on hall pass usage instead of resorting to unsafe practices.

4) Do you need to maximize in-class time to address learning loss or improve academic outcomes?

In The State of the American Student report for fall 2023, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) reported that the average 4th grade math score decreased 5 points from 2019 to 2022 – the lowest it’s been since 1990. The average math score for 8th graders decreased by 8 points during the same time period.

The issue of post-pandemic learning loss and declining academic performance isn’t easily solved, especially with the resource constraints many schools face. And a digital hall pass obviously won’t move the needle on student achievement. But it can help you make the most of instructional time. 

By automating the request and approval process, a digital hall pass ensures minimal interruption to instructional time. Students discreetly make pass requests from their digital device, and teachers can grant or deny them in an instant so the flow of instruction is maintained. 

The implementation of a digital hall pass also provides an opportunity to reinforce expectations about conduct and accountability, and develop students’ ownership for their behavior. Not surprisingly, schools that have implemented digital hall passes report significant reductions in hall pass use during class time.

Isn’t it time you experienced a digital hall pass for yourself?

Digital hall passes are helping thousands of school leaders build safer, more productive, and more successful school communities. But don’t just take our word for it. Experience all that’s possible with a digital hall pass for yourself. 

Visit www.securly.com/pass to schedule a no-obligation demo and learn more.