Over the past few weeks there has been a buzz around South due to the slow shift to online passes. This process will be executed in the coming weeks, and a leisurely transition is expected next semester. Online passes will be accessible on a system called Securly Pass, which will allow students to request a pass right from their Chromebook. The method of asking for a pass right from a laptop is expected to cause little distractions and enable teachers to keep up with lessons without stopping to distribute a paper pass.
Assistant Principal Fernando Nieto believes that Securly Pass serves as a huge benefit to South and can even help the environment.
“My own personal opinion, it would be more going green. You’re saving a ton of copies of passes to be honest. A lot of the time students would lose their pass so then it was kind of tough to prove where [they’re] supposed to be,” Nieto said.
Nieto is a big advocate in attendance. The new online pass system will significantly decrease the amount of people roaming around hallways during class time, which will improve quality of education.
“We can keep track of student downtime if they are out and about too many times in the hallways or just wasting time in the hallways avoiding class. So I think a lot of it would be to maximize more educational time in the classroom instead of being outside of the classroom,” Nieto said.
The Securly passes are still very new to South, so there are still things to be worked out while teachers get accounts set up. According to Nieto, he hopes to get more teachers to use the passes after Thanksgiving break and open more communication with students about them during the second semester.
Currently, only teachers have access to the program and a few volunteers are testing it with their students. One of these volunteers, Sevgi Acik, a French teacher, described having good experiences with Securly on her end. Acik finds the program easy to operate and thinks the program is beneficial, but doesn’t see it rolling out right away..
“They [first] need to get used to it, and this year I don’t think we will, especially this semester;the students won’t be able to use it so much. Second semester we will have more students able to use it,” said Acik.
According to Nieto, the act of obtaining passes online makes the process easier for everyone. The system is simple, yet effective. Its convenience is clear compared to paper passes, as they efficiently aid students who need to leave the classroom.
“[You] click on the link, [and] do a search for the teacher; there’s a drop down menu that says bathroom or water or depending what other things we want to use it for and then [you] hit submit. While the teacher is teaching, they get a notification on their computer. If they’re at their desk, they see a box containing the student’s name, desired location, and can approve or decline the button,” Nieto said.
Securly was originally used in middle schools before being added into high schools like Plainfield North.
“It has been implemented widely at the middle schools, I believe. And because of how it’s being used at the middle schools, we’ve heard great things about the system, so that’s when conversations started happening at the high school level,” Nieto said.
However, some students believe that the online pass system doesn’t really have a purpose. Senior Zayvion Galloway thinks that Securly Pass is only useful when teachers are busy.
“The only benefits I see is that it [prevents teachers from stopping class] to give someone an online pass, but for students I don’t really see a benefit,” Galloway said.
Freshman Plainfield North student, Jacob Chase, has used Securly and has never experienced any issues with it.
“[I have] mixed opinions on the system though. I like the regular pass better, at least because you don’t need to wait for your teacher and there is no time limit. Also, there’s no pass limit each day, but I do like the Securly because then there are not a lot of people in the bathroom,” Chase said.
