Increasing incidents of vaping, student conflicts, and hallway distractions have frustrated high school administrators across the country. As a result, an increasing number of school districts have adopted the use of the electronic hall pass, this move being inspired by a push for modernization that has successfully produced results in education, such as added WiFi connectivity and access to computers.

Depending upon the program or company utilized, aspects of the digital hall pass vary from district to district. With some technology apps, a student will request and be granted permission for a hall pass from a teacher via their laptop or smart device, allowing districts to monitor how long hall breaks are for each student as well as trends in hall pass abuse. By checking the app, staff monitoring the hallway can ensure that students are where they are supposed to be at all times.

For other programs, when the teacher allows a student to leave the classroom, they can create a time limit and manually enter where the student should be going. The purpose of this is to ensure that students are not wandering aimlessly through the halls and are where they need to be.

Many feel that electronic hall passes have significant benefits. “Electronic hall pass systems provide an easy-to-use and powerful technology that can help improve student supervision while reducing classroom distractions, lost time on tasks and the number of student conduct violations,” an article from Security Magazine states.

Concerns with the new technology include privacy issues as well as management issues still needing to be ironed out among many schools. This includes putting a computer in every classroom so that the school has working WiFi, and combined with the fact that students would still have to use normal passes as well, this initiative does not seem to be worth the trouble.

All these factors beg the question, are electronic hall passes the future, or just another fad?