Hawthorne High School has recently introduced a new hall pass system, E-Hallpass.

The E-Hallpass allows you to use the bathroom by requesting a pass from your teacher for the bathroom, guidance office, or any other room in the building. The teacher then sees your request and can either accept or decline it. There may only be a maximum of 15 students out of their classrooms throughout the school, with 5 students per bathroom.

The program also times how long you are out of the room before the teacher stops the timer. If you’re out for too long then you get a yellow flag; and if you are out for an excessive amount of time, you get a red flag. This lowers the amount of students in the hallways and skipping classes.

There are pros and cons to the new system. Some pros are, there are fewer kids in the halls, this allows for more time in class and more work can get done throughout the class period and the day. The app also can see if two people go to the bathroom too frequently and take a long time.

Another pro is that teachers will know where you are throughout the building for your safety, and if there were any emergencies they would know where anyone who has a pass will be.

Some cons to E-Hallpass include teachers having to stop in the middle of their lessons to approve or decline a student’s pass. It could be difficult for teachers to have a lesson while kids ask to go to the bathroom because teachers have to switch tabs and wait for the pass to let them go.

When students need to go to the bathroom it takes a while for the pass to let them go since there is always a maximum amount of students out. It could take a while for a spot to be open for another student to use the bathroom.

The E-Hallpass has given us a new measure of safety, but it has some downsides as well.