Metea Valley’s hall passes will be digital, replacing the traditional paper passes. These new passes will allow teachers to monitor students when they leave the classroom, whether it’s for the bathroom or the nurse. The process of switching from paper to digital is starting this spring and will continue over the summer, with the change being finalized when school starts in the fall.
“If we do have students who take a pass, we’re not monitoring how long they’re gone. The digital pass will mark that, so teachers will know how long they’re gone with their pass. We can limit the number of times that students use it, and the data will come back,” Principal Daniel Debruycker said.
Students will use the existing portal, which they currently use to sign up for Mustang 30, to also sign out for bathroom breaks or visits to the nurse. In addition to changing to digital passes, Metea will no longer use Edficiency.
“Next year, we’re using Securely, and Securely is going to be how we sign up for Mustang 30. They also have a digital hall pass process,” Debruycker said. “Waubonsie Valley is piloting it this year with some success.”
There will be a brief transition period for students, with the new digital passes expected to be in place by the start of next year. As of now, teachers have not received formal training to manage these passes. However, Rodney Jones, one of Metea’s assistant principals, will be one of the first staff members to undergo training on what the process will look like for staff and students.
“So on the Chromebook or their cell phone, they’ll be requesting it,” Debruycker said. It’ll take a little bit of explaining from our staff, so the transition is gonna look like us getting trained in all the details, putting some documentation together, and communicating that to the community and the students before they even get here.”
Travis Fink • May 19, 2025 at 2:09 pm
What is the purpose of this change? The only thing I can see happening due to this is more stress on teachers and students. Making it take longer to get into the bathroom while also restricting a lot of time inside of classes with the freeze and having bathrooms occasionally be locked is going to make it incredibly difficult for anyone to go to the bathroom at all. I also don’t understand how anything would be done about the time because at times the internet can be so bad it can take 3 minutes to log on and sign back in. It just seems like a bad idea.
Brendan • May 19, 2025 at 11:54 am
Granger Middle School has also been using this pass system since September.
As a student, I have found it adds a level of inconvenience to bathroom access throughout the day. The website forces both the student and the teacher to log back in every time, taking roughly 2 minutes of class time to make a pass which would otherwise take 10 seconds to do on paper. The website is also quite laggy.
I’d like to add that I have my doubts as to if a teacher wouldn’t notice that a student has been gone for 5+ minutes with a paper pass. There were plenty of times over the past two years before Securly where students were out of class for too long. Every time, the teacher noticed and acted accordingly.
I could see it’s use being helpful to discipline those who vandalize the bathrooms, but I have yet to see it used successfully in that capacity.
Alketa Picari • May 15, 2025 at 6:02 pm
What will determine whether or not a student is gone for too long? Who decides what’s acceptable, and how it will be addressed?
Delaying use, limiting use, or tracking how long students go to the restroom only adds unnecessary stress and shame around something we can’t control—especially for female students, who more often have to use the restroom for urgent reasons such as periods.
Students shouldn’t be put in a position where we have to explain or justify having our periods every time we need to go to the restroom, or explain why we took longer during a trip. It’s invasive and embarrassing for many of us.
Locking the bathrooms at certain times, along with the ten minute freeze has already made it stressful for ALL students to find time to use the restroom. Multiple times I would have to wait to use a staff bathroom after finding out the student bathrooms were locked during passing period—the time we are most often told to use it.
Neither of these systems leave room for individual needs of students, but instead turn personal health into something that’s treated like a discipline issue.
Instead of targeting what it’s made to, it punishes everyone, and disproportionately affects female students who already face challenges related to personal health.
Mason Dang • May 15, 2025 at 1:08 pm
Do our policymakers really think that extra surveillance will make our students less likely to misbehave or use substances? We already have people sitting outside each bathroom, and I think we all know it didn’t do anything but increase frustration among students because of frequent bathroom lockouts and longer waiting times. The root of the issue goes deeper than our students being ‘unsupervised’. There is a notion that ‘reinstating authority’ will push students back into line, but several studies show a negative correlation between increased surveillance and misbehavior, as well as harsher suspension policies causing academic decline. (“suspended education”, UCLA). We don’t need to be timing how long our students are in the bathroom to keep them out of trouble, we need to provide environments in and out of the classroom where the behaviors we want to get rid of don’t feel like the only option and where harmful behaviors are changed through empathy, education, and betterment rather than shame and punishment.