The new 23-24 school year introduced students to a new bathroom system. In previous years, students would need their planners signed by teachers when they asked to go to the bathroom. Now, students must sign their names on a sign-out sheet available in class and take a block with their room number on it. These blocks are color coded in order to indcate what wing a student is coming from. These being: the 100 (red), 200 (yellow), 300 (blue), and gym/media center (green) hallways. This new system came as a shock to students. 

Last year, it was very common for students to use the bathroom and walk the halls. Unfortunately, this meant they were missing a lot of valuable class time and distracting classes in the process. For example, students would stop in other classes to talk to a friend, staff, or coaches. Such disruptions led administration to use the passes in an attempt to stop students from walking the halls and distracting classes. When administration addressed this issue with staff and students last year, the problem continued to go on for the remainder of the 22-23 school year. 

As students returned to school for the 23-24 school year, they were introduced to the new passes, which have both benefits and problems.

Some problems with the passes include:

• A student will take a block from their class and go to the bathroom, where they are then told to leave the pass at the sign-in desks  When the passes are left on the desk, students do not look at the room number to see who it belongs to. Instead, they see their hallway color, and without checking, take any pass. Therefore, passes are being returned to the wrong classrooms and go missing. It is causing problems because if both of the passes for a classroom are missing, no one can go to the bathroom in that classroom.
• The blocks are unsanitary and do not get cleaned at the end of the day. There are so many different students touching these blocks, and sometimes, they end up in bathrooms. Bacteria on wood can live for up to 4 hours, according to the experts at Love To Know. Four hours is more than half of a school day, so bacteria might still be alive on the passes well after someone handles one.
• Students meet up with their friends while ignoring the policy and purpose of the blocks. These students will take each other’s blocks , so they are able to be in different hallways. Some students even just ignore the block rule and walk the halls.

However, the bathroom blocks have helped a lot. Some of the ways they benefit students are as follows:

• The passes are keeping students more behaved. They now understand why it is important to go to the bathroom and go right back to class. Administration noted there has been a large decrease in the number of students walking around each period. 
• Students no longer get the chance to walk around for 25 minutes in a 85 minute period. With the planner system, students would spend more time in the halls than in classrooms, which hurt their grades because they were missing lessons.
• The passes limit students from meeting up with friends inside the bathrooms and the stalls, so there is less wait time for students standing in line. 

The blocks solve the school wide problem of long bathroom lines and aren’t going anywhere.