Ten students walk the halls of Normal Community West High School.

Five of them have a paper pass, but the passes are blank or missing important information.

The other five students don’t have a pass at all.

So, how can the hall monitors tell where students are supposed to be and where they came from?

Some Normal West faculty are working on a solution.

A few staff members are piloting a new electronic pass technology to maximize instructional time and minimize hallway traffic.

Instead of teachers scribbling on a paper pass for a student, students will now be able to request a pass through their Infinite Campus, where teachers can either accept or deny it.

Students will then have five minutes to go to and from their desired location.

“The school is an educational setting. We want students to be in the classrooms. We don’t want them roaming the hallways, [and we want] less clutter and less traffic [in the hallways],” Normal West Assistant Principal Dr. Francesc Borrull said.

The e-pass is meant to maximize the time of students in the classroom; the faster the passes are out, the more time students get in a classroom to receive instructions.

“The classroom is 49 minutes multiplied by seven classes a day, multiplied by 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year, times 4 years, is exactly 4,500 hours. It’s 0.5% of the time you will be on planet Earth if you live up until 90 years old,” Borrull stated. 

Time is crucial, and the e-passes can be a useful tool to maximize learning and know where the students are. 

“If you spend ten minutes out in one class, that’s twenty percent of instructional time Gone,” Borrull explained.

Staff members have found that paper passes cause a lack of accountability from students, finding it to be an outdated system.

“It will give us the data we need to understand the real picture of how attendance is managed and how attendance works in this building,”  Borrull said.

The electronic pass data could also increase the learning of the students by increasing students’ attendance. 

“We thought it would be wise to develop a digital system. I will give us more accurate data to improve the maximization of learning,” Borull added.

Electronic passes also make it easier for hall monitors to see if a student actually has a pass.

“49 percent [of students] who are in the hall right now do not have passes; some of those passes have nothing on them,”  Borull stated.

Electronic passes increase the safety for students because faculty would know where to look if a student can’t be found during emergencies, compared to paper passes, where staff would have to ask the teacher where the student is.

“Sometimes we’ve had emergencies. [A parent asks where their daughter is, and] I couldn’t lie, I have to tell the truth that I don’t know where your daughter is,”  Borull stated.

The new electronic pass feature is now located in the Infinite Campus system, allowing staff to use attendance and monitoring to track students’ whereabouts.

“It’s also within the Infinite Campus realm. It’s already contained in [a system] where we already are taking attendance, as well as in our grades and the learning management system,” Borrull stated.

The system makes it easier for teachers to digitally issue passes without the need to interrupt

instructional time.

Once the pass is issued, a preset timer is set, and the student is given five minutes to go to their designated place and return before the timer runs out.

“All of these times are already preset. In the pilot program, we’re working to see if those times are correct,” West tech coach Ed Hafermann noted, “Once their timer goes back down to zero, then we’re able to see that. And then it’s able to record that information, so that we can run daily reports or weekly reports from an admin [stand] point.”

And in case of an emergency or upcoming event, any hall monitor can log into the server and give a student more time if necessary.

“A [hall monitor] can [add one minute] or two minutes within the program as well,” Borrull added.

There are already a few teachers who have started using the system, including West math teacher, Kati Winkle.

“I’ve been piloting the E-Passes on Infinite Campus this semester, and so far I’ve really enjoyed it. We have a few kinks to work out, like a visual for quick checks of students, but overall, it has been more efficient,” Winkle noted.

“I appreciate the ability to see where students are when they’re late to class with another teacher or often asking for passes. I’m excited to see how much smoother things will run once all classes are using the new system,” she added.

The overall hope is that the new system will create a manageable environment for both students and teachers.

Staff have expressed both successes and struggles with the new system, as teachers and staff continue to experiment with the capabilities of electronic passes.

“I think the key with the pilot program is you’re gonna have speed bumps. We’re encountering those speed bumps right now,” Hafermann explained. “The main issue, as of right now, is the blended students scanning in and out; the system needs adjustments to ensure they don’t appear as late or overdue.”

A final meeting with the board at the beginning of the second semester will be needed for the approval of the launch.

Staff members have found that paper passes lead to irresponsibility among both students and teachers, causing hall monitors to become frustrated with the current system of passes.

Paper passes also allow teachers to unknowingly let students go to the “bathroom” every hour.

“The system is going to give us the data; the administration team needs to be looking at who’s asking passes daily. Every period,” Borrull explained.

Administration can also view which teachers are constantly giving passes to students.

Not only does it allow staff members to see who and where a student is going, but it also allows students to lose the privileges of asking for passes.

For example, if a student is not allowed to receive passes, then the teacher will be blocked on Infinite Campus from giving the student a pass.

Electronic passes open the gate to giving staff members an explanation for why a student may be struggling academically: “If a student is struggling academically, these reports can show a trend in that student’s behavior, and if they are consistently out of the classroom,” Borrull stated.

Borrull and Hafermen have the hope that the new electronic passes will become the norm for all students.

“[West] likes to make things better, at least better than when we found them,” Borrull explained.

Borrull has explained that the school is prepared, if they have a positive mindset, anything they put their mind to can be achieved: “We have mentality in our mindset, (…) there’s nothing impossible,” Borrull stated.

Although there are many kinks and hurdles to get through before the passes become the only option at Normal West, Borrull, Hafermann and all that have begun working with the new technology believe that electronic passes will become the norm in the future.