At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, Rockbridge County High School introduced a revolutionary system of online hall passes. The addition of the system caused controversy throughout the school among both students and faculty. The result of the decision includes increased technology usage in school as well as more control over the student body.

The new system is called e-hallpass and can be found on the Clever homepage after logging in to a student Chromebook. Once in the application, students will search and select their teacher’s name in a search bar and then select their intended destination. Once accepted by the teacher, students are allowed to leave and return in a timely manner. While they are gone, a clock runs and tracks time until the student has returned and is checked back in by the teacher.

The addition of e-hallpass is very beneficial to the school because it helps keep track of who is out of the classrooms and when. This allows administration to know who should and should not be out of class which makes it easier to prevent students from skipping class or taking too long to go to the bathroom. Students will not have to worry so much about trying to go to the bathroom and finding large groups lurking in the bathroom and skipping class, nor will they be questioned about why they are not in class because the e-hallpass system has the names of who is going to the bathroom or doing other approved activities.

While some may argue that e-hallpass is an invasion of privacy due to its nature of tracking how long one is in the bathroom, it is actually a very necessary feature for administrators to track if students are abusing their hall passes and will not affect the majority of students who are acting responsibly. There is also the issue of teachers having to approve whenever a student submits an e-hallpass and approve again when the student has returned, potentially causing a disruption to the flow of class and additional unnecessary responsibilities. But most of the teaching staff keeps their computers on for class activities anyway, by keeping e-hallpass open for quick and easy access it will cause teachers minimal burden. Even if a student needs to go to the bathroom but the class is not using Chromebooks at the moment, teachers can submit a manual e-hallpass.

Overall, e-hallpass is a great addition to Rockbridge County High School. This use of increased technological efficiency allows administration to more easily prevent students skipping class, congregating in bathrooms and being generally irresponsible. The system is easy to use for both students and teachers, providing only minor inconvenience for both parties, but the benefits greatly outweigh the costs.