As of Monday, February 28, 2022, the Hillsborough High School Administration sent out notice that hall passes would be brought back to “tighten up security.”

A controversial decision, the general student body has been giving some pretty negative feedback.

“It defeats the purpose of signing into bathrooms,” argued one student, also emphasizing how it also creates stress for teachers assigned to bathroom duty, who could potentially have 10-15 passes with names of unfamiliar students sprawled out in front of them.

Another angle taken by the student body has been the negative environmental effects.

“I think it’s a waste of paper,” an anonymous Senior stated, “not to mention that most students won’t be recycling them either.”

The amount of paper that is used and wasted in schools every year is already at an alarming amount, but has been decreased due to the introduction of technology and school Chromebooks, so there’s no reason for us as a school to be contributing to negative environmental cause.

Though it’s not only the students with an opinion on the recent hall pass decision.  It’s teachers who are being robbed of class time, creating an inefficient way of teaching and learning.

As an observer it’s evident how disruptive to the classroom paper passes can be. Teachers working with students or in the middle of a lesson will be interrupted to write a paper pass. Ultimately as a student, the lesson itself becomes disjointed and choppy.

As much as it was thought out to be silly in the past, it could be suggested that the HHS Administration needs to take a step backwards and use methods of those of elementary schools, with reusable passes that could be distributed across the school.  Obviously sanitation procedures would also have to be followed due to the germs that can be passed from student to student, but if brought out correctly, could be more effective and environmentally friendly.