Roughly a year after rolling out digital hall passes, teachers and students in Lincoln, Neb., Public Schools (LPS) are seeing positive outcomes from that effort.
Last fall, LPS introduced digital hall passes at high schools to address student behavior and support educators. Initial success with the program at the high school level led two middle schools to pilot programs last spring. The results were impressive enough that LPS will add the technology at all other middle schools this fall.
The digital hall pass system allows students to discreetly ask teachers for electronic passes through their Chromebook by identifying both their current location and their destination. Teachers can approve requests either from their own device or the student’s computer.
With the digital pass program, administrators can limit the number of available passes at one time for both the entire building and specific locations. The digital system knows how many passes are currently being used, and it also helps prevent possible behavior situations by ensuring safety plans are being followed. However, teachers do have the ability to override pass limits if there is an urgent need by the student.
John Matzen, principal of Southwest High School, said that during the pilot program there “was a drastic change in the number of students in the hallway, which meant there was a drastic increase in instructional time. For one tool (digital hall pass) to be able to make that much change was amazing. It exceeded my expectations.”
School leaders believe the new digital pass system has increased student and staff wellbeing, which are two focuses of the school district’s new strategic plan.
“I just am really proud of our secondary schools for being willing to think about the impact that instructional time and student engagement plays in student achievement,” LPS Director of Secondary Education Jessie Fries said. “These are new systems and guidelines that we’ve put in place with the emphasis that we want to support teaching and learning.”
In terms of improving student wellbeing, Southwest High School has the system set so that an online pass turns yellow if a student is out of a classroom for more than ten minutes. Adults can then locate the student and determine if there is a safety issue that needs to be addressed.
Additionally, the new pass system has resulted in students having more time in the classroom. Irving Middle School, which piloted the new pass system this past spring, found that its overall tardiness-to-class numbers decreased by 28 percent from the first semester. As part of its pilot, Irving students could use digital hall passes twice each day. Administrators established that only 17 students could be out of class at any one time in the building.
