New Pass Policy Aims to Prioritize Student Safety, Met with Student Concerns

A student obtaining a sticky-note pass after a club meeting in order to cross the street in the morning. Photo Credits: Rebecca Billette

Rebecca Billette, Editor-in-Chief of The Powderhorn

Watauga High School students with their first block off-campus have noticed a  new requirement before returning to their cars after a morning club meeting. Students must now obtain a “pass” from the front office, which typically entails a light green Post-It note with the student’s name and the date written on it, before crossing the street to the parking lot. Some students have frustration with this new policy, due to questions about its effectiveness and efficiency, but administration reassures that it serves a necessary purpose and is only a temporary transition phase until a more permanent solution can be implemented.

“Whenever you come to school in the morning for a club meeting or to meet with a teacher or anything, you have to go to the office and get a note to go to your car,” said Avery Moretz, a senior without a first block. “Every time that I leave school, I have to wait. Usually there's a long line of people going to get a pass.”

The most prevalent concern students have had with the policy is the amount of class time they’re losing waiting for a pass. Many students have to be at Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute at a certain time for their dual enrollment classes, and others have a full class period worth of online work to complete, and every second they wait at school cuts into that.

“A lot of us who don't have first blocks but are still here early in the morning, we're doing stuff that's probably more high caliber stuff, that not everybody at our school is doing,” Janie Beach-Verhey, another senior, said. “And so, the fact that we're the ones that are getting this kind of speed bump is a little unfortunate.”

Since this policy only affects students who are at school before it starts, it tends to disproportionately impact students who arrive early for clubs, workouts or before-school help with teachers. At first glance, this policy may seem to have only negative effects, but the administration says that it is actually a solution to a much larger problem.

“We noticed last year that there were some students, and it wasn't a lot, but there were several in particular that would come in, their parents would drop them off or their guardians. However they got school, or even sometimes the bus, and then they would leave and say, ‘Hey, I'm going out to my car to get something,’ and we would notice that then they would never come back,” said Dr. Scott Strickler, Principal of Watauga High School and Innovation Academy.

Initially, the school’s approach was to require students to leave their phone behind in the front office before going back to their cars. However, this led to two primary issues. For starters, students without a first block could not leave their phones behind since they were going off-campus, and, secondly, there was an incident of a student leaving their phone behind and leaving school, now without a way for parents to contact them. Dr. Strickler emphasized the importance of knowing where each student is.

“Do you remember a couple weeks ago when we had a fire alarm? [Maintenance was] working on something and it went off and that was not a drill so we were moving everybody to the stadium,” Dr. Strickler said. “In those kinds of situations, we have to be able to account for every single student on the campus.”

With this motivation in mind, the new policy seems to make a lot more sense. In an emergency situation, it is important that administration can inform parents if their student is simply off-campus or cannot be accounted for and may be in danger. However, students have pointed out that, while the reasoning is sound, the pass strategy may not be effective at accomplishing this goal.

“They're just writing down our name based off of what we tell them it is, and stamping it, and then we walk out with the note,” said Beach-Verhey. “They’re not recording it anywhere or taking a picture of it to know who was on campus and now isn't on campus.”

In addition to not accurately tracking students, the policy may not even prevent students who are supposed to be on campus for their first block from skipping.

“I think the biggest problem is that they enforce, very strictly, how we have to go get a note, but then every time I go get a note, they ask for my first name, but they don't ever check to see if I actually have a first block,” Moretz said. “So, if someone had a first block, they could walk in and say, ‘Hey, I don't have a first block. Can I have a note?’ and walk out because they never check.” 

While the situation may seem impossible, there is a new solution on the horizon: a new strategy involving scanners and each student having an individual barcode. This would allow them to scan in and out of class. This has been in the works for a while but was delayed as IT focused its attention on setting up the new Valle Crucis school.

“What we're trying to do is if you log into your Infinite Campus, if you have the app downloaded, it's actually got a barcode that popped up a couple weeks ago,” said Dr. Strickler. “We're trying to get it set up so we've got some scanners that you can scan in and out.” 

While this new strategy, like any novel idea, will certainly have some kinks to work out and logistics to solidify, administration and students alike are hopeful it will be a more permanent solution, that is both efficient and accurately keeps track of students.

“The feeling is like, ‘Why are you being bureaucratic?’,” said Dr. Strickler. “Just know that when we set up stuff like this, we do our best and we're human and imperfect. 
We want to make sure that every kid here is safe. I always want kids to feel safe when they come to school. 
And this is an extension of that, even though it may not feel like it.”