By Spencer Freund

Passes: they have been used at our school for as long as most of us can remember. Their usage is simple: all you have to do is have a teacher fill it out, and you may travel to your chosen destination. However, the pass system is not flawless and the administration at our school has noticed a few problems with the system. They believe it can be time consuming for a teacher to fill out a pass for every student that wishes to go to the bathroom or their locker. And this can lead to teachers not filling out passes at all. Similarly, sometimes teachers run out of passes, and then must let the student go without a pass. Due to these problems, there is a proposal in our school to develop a new system for next year where every student would get a “passport.”

Every student at the beginning of the year would receive one of these passports. Throughout the entire year, they would hold onto this passport at all times. And if you wished to go somewhere, you would simply ask your teacher to sign or stamp a page in your passport. There would be many pages in the passport; therefore you would never run out. The passport may also have your picture in it. Another usage of the passport would be to have a record and history of where all students have been and why.

Although I understand the point and purpose of this new passport, I have a few questions and concerns about its usage and functionality. For instance, what would happen in a situation where a student lost his or her passport? Would the student then not be allowed to go to the bathroom until the passport is replaced? And unfortunately, I picture students losing their passports quite often during the year. Also, the fact that it will act as a record of where we have been feels very “big brother” to me. I understand for security reasons our school must keep some record of their students. But do they really need to know when and where I go to the bathroom? To me that seems a bit excessive. Also, if a student had done something wrong, and wanted to erase their passport record, all they would have to do is “lose” the passport, and their record would be gone. The point is, certain students will do bad things regardless of whether there is a passport or not. They will just find new ways to get around the system. Therefore, I do not know how successful the passports will act as a record keeping system.

I don’t think the passports are necessarily a bad idea. It certainly would be quicker than filling out a pass, and it makes teachers more likely to actually fill out passes. However, it is a flawed system. And if the administration and teachers want this idea to work, it is essential that they work out the above mentioned problems.