Throughout October and November, students at NHS were introduced to a new online hall pass system called Securly, hopefully ensuring safety and productivity within the school. Securly allows students to create digital hall passes when leaving a classroom that are sent to every hall monitor and teacher. 

NHS administration chose this system to replace paper passes that were independently given by each teacher. In the past, students have been able to miss long periods of class with no clear record of it. This problem takes up time from school officials while looking for these students, and Securly was introduced to hopefully fix that. The Securly system is visible to all teachers and includes photos of the students, how many passes that student used that day, and a timer that shows how long a student has been out of the classroom. 

This system was originally tested and used by freshmen and is now being used consistently throughout the entire school. 

“It was pretty simple, but just figuring out the best way to show the teachers how it works, show the students how it works, without, like, overwhelming everybody has been a little bit difficult,” said Technology Integration Specialist, Laura Mullen. 

Many people are questioning the purpose of this system and whether it is worth the hassle to set up.

Mullen said, “It’s like a safety thing. We just want to make sure that students are accounted for at all times, so I think it would help with that,” she said. 

Freshman teachers were among the first to pilot the new Securly system. 

“It’s very user-friendly for the most part. Students have caught on pretty quickly with how to use it, and it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing,” said Freshman Academy English teacher Julia Bonnist.

Although this system has proven to be simple, many students remain skeptical. 

“I think it causes more work for students and teachers,” said Sophomore Allison Malley.

Many students’ opinions have changed as more time has passed using Securly.

“I didn’t want to use it at first, but now it’s getting normalized,” said sophomore Sienna Pallang. 

Teachers seem to have more positive opinions about the system. 

Julia Bonnist said, “I think with any new system, there’s gonna be a little bit of hesitation just because change can be hard. So I think any initial resistance to it was quickly diminished once they realized that it is easy, it’s quick, and it interrupts class less.”