This year, West has employed a new system to supplement the passes we all know and love to use when we leave the class. As of this school year, we are to use a sign out sheet or book to sign out of and back in to our respective classes. Dr. Morton introduced this system in response to acts of vandalism that occurred last year. Primarily, the new system will be used to be certain where students are when they leave the classroom. Teachers have eagerly adopted this new method and have presented it to the students with the reminder that they are legally responsible for us. This also protects teachers in case of possible new bathroom shenanigans.

The students, on the other hand, have not had much to say about the new method openly, so I decided to get into the minds of a few upperclassmen to see what they really think about the sign out sheet.
The juniors have been familiar with the traditional pass system for their first two years here and now have a few weeks with our new sign out method. They were very open to sharing their opinions.

A few students had speculation as to why this new change has occurred, such as “because they are doing contract stuff” or “because apparently there was a lot of vandalism.” There has also been speculation that there is more than simply vandalism to blame here. There were some general opinions, like the sign out method is “an unnecessary addition, and frankly communicates a lack of trust from the administration towards the student body,” “it’s kinda tedious,” and “I don’t understand how a second sign in sheet helps. It’s pointless.” One student even suggested that the school should have invested in cameras instead.

Further questioning led to the actual functionality of the method, and how it’s employed in the classroom. Most of the students I interviewed already found it “unnecessary” or “pointless,” and in action, it’s been found to be “a little distracting.” One student explained to me that watching the student go back and forth between the teacher, their desk and the sign out sheet (which is usually placed in the front or side of the room) is distracting, which means it’s pulling them away from the instruction.

This may be just a small problem, especially when no more than one person is leaving at a time, but when teachers are inevitably, repeatedly asked by students to leave, they are stopping in the middle of instruction to sign passes or remind them that they need to sign out. Most likely, this problem will fade mid-year and everyone will get into the groove of this new found pass system, but it was interesting to see what was on the students’ minds that they weren’t saying.