Kaya Egeler

Freshman Ava Hall walks back to class in the 200 hallway while carrying the classroom bathroom pass. Each hallway bathroom is now color coded and students may only use that bathroom on that specific floor.

With a new phone policy being implemented, new rules, and a new bathroom pass policy, a lot has changed for the 2023-24 school year. 

Students aren’t too excited for these new changes. With every hallway being assigned a specific color, this is showing just how strict the new school year has become. The color coded passes and hallways have been implemented to be better able to catch students who are skipping classes. 

Many students have some very strong feelings about these new rules and changes. Yes, bathroom passes are a nice thing to have, but is color coding them for each hallway excessive?

“I think having bathroom passes in general are good,” junior Ava Weber said, “but if a student has an emergency and the teacher won’t let them go because the pass is gone, that can cause some serious issues.” 

Weber added that having as few students as possible out at once is a good thing. However, if a student is having an emergency and needs to go and a student is already out what is that student supposed to do? 

This new school year has been challenging and much more strict and stressful for students this year. Implementing these new passes are a good and bad thing. 

“I feel like it was a good reason to help students stop skipping class, but at the same time I’m like what if you need to run to use the other bathroom or something, cause one is full or you have a problem with someone,” senior David “Will” Grimes said. 

Implementing the colors is a great way for teachers and staff to pick out which students are trying to skip. Many students have said these bathroom passes have positives and negatives. 

“If kids are going to skip class they would just not show up to begin with. It’s somewhat of a problem we can’t fix,” Weber said.

Even though we now have these passes, that doesn’t completely stop the skipping problem we face. If a student is going to skip they’re going to skip class. School is stressful for students no matter what. With these new passes, that just adds another level of stress to students even if teachers/staff don’t think so.