Hall Pass Story

Mia Boudreau

Headline: ​DHS hall passes prove to be potentially contaminated with e.coli

Word Count: 801

“Take the pass” is the typical response a student will hear from a teacher when

they ask permission to leave the classroom. ​The start of the 2017-2018 school year

brought many changes to DHS, including the addition of "clipboard hall passes.”

Students are supposed to take the pass with them everytime they leave the classroom for

safety purposes, but have they really been beneficial?

The passes provide a way to monitor who is out of the room, and if a student is

stopped in the hallway, other teachers have a way to know where they are supposed to

be.

“​The hall passes are useful in the sense that teachers and security can see who has

gotten permission from their teacher to leave, and who is just ditching and wandering

the halls,” said Fr. Savannah Bergman.

Although the intended use for the hall passes is clear to both students and

teachers alike, they are still proving to be ineffective.

“Some kids don’t take them anyways, because everyone is so strongly against

them, and when kids don’t take them it defeats the purpose,” said So. Clara Galbraith.

Most students have never even been stopped in the hallway by a teacher or a

security guard. Which raises questions about the effectiveness of the passes.
 “I don’t think that hall passes are all that effective because no one is really

monitoring the hall to make sure people have passes. If anything, they are making

things more complicated and spreading germs,” said Bergman.

Another common concern raised about the hall passes is sanitation. The passes

are taken to and from the bathroom and rarely, if ever, get disinfected.

“They’re really disgusting, the fact that everyone uses them and takes them

everywhere, you never know who had it last,” said Galbraith.

DHS science teacher Eric Jackson said that most teachers never clean the passes

because they don’t ever have to use them, so it never crosses their mind.

As of now, there are mixed responses on whether the current hall passes should

be altered, eradicated, or just remain the same.

“I would suggest that students should start using the hall passes in our planners

to keep sanitary or just eliminate them completely and then have teachers take a second

attendance to mark people who may have left,” said Bergman.

While some students think that the hall passes need to go, there are some who

are not as bothered.

“​I wouldn't get rid of them at this point, although they are super unsanitary and

kind of a hassle, I think it gives teachers a peace of mind as to who is out of the room,”

said Sr. Emma Vogel.

An alternate view is to alter the hall passes but keep the same concept.

“If I had the choice I would keep the hall passes but switch them to something

cleaner and more sanitary,” said Jr. Colson Parker.

 El Diablo​ conducted an experiment with the support of the DHS Science

Department on the hall passes to find out how contaminated they really are. The test

was done using a simple bacteria swab kit with agar plates.

Nine passes were swabbed from different departments around the school. A

control clipboard was also swabbed, which was used for academic purposes, but not as a

hall pass. After swabbing the clipboards with a sterile cotton swab, the bacteria was then

swiped on to agar plates and set up in an incubator for the bacteria to grow.

After the incubation period, the agar plates showed substantial bacterial growth.

“​The plates that had the most widespread growth would be the worst because

there is a greater amount of bacteria, followed by the plates with large clumps which

indicates that the bacteria was reproducing quickly,” said Jackson.

In comparison to the results from the control clipboard, the results from the hall

pass clipboards had much more widespread bacterial growth, while the control

clipboard had more concentrated bacterial growth.

There is not a sure way to determine the type of bacteria with the resources we

had, but Mr. Jackson was able to analyze the plates.

“I would say based on the results, it is quite obvious that people handling the

clipboards are not always washing their hands and/or teachers are not disinfecting their

clipboards regularly. Because of this, the clipboards could be carriers for bacteria. As far

as the type of bacteria… I would say it is Escherichia coli also known as e.coli which can

make people sick,” said Jackson.

 The hall passes proved to be contaminated, and could potentially be getting

people sick. Based on student feedback, they don’t seem to be keeping students

especially safe, and they are not well regulated. These passes have shown evidence that

they could possibly be more detrimental than beneficial to the students of Durango High

School.