In PLHS, the halls have never been so empty. It’s now possible that students who leave their classrooms during class will not see a single other soul on the way to their destination. In fact, that is by design.

This year, a new system was implemented to reduce the amount of students skipping class in the bathrooms and hallways. Bathroom passes have become mandatory, and each classroom has an assigned bathroom that students must use. Approximately a month into this new system, and students’ opinions are still remarkably split.

Some students see it as an inconvenience to use the assigned bathrooms.

“I don’t really like it, because I feel like we should choose where we get to go to the bathroom,” sophomore Bella Niemi said. “Because there are really bad bathrooms in different parts of the school, and some of them are way better.”

For other students, they’ve started to appreciate the positives of it.

“At first I just thought it was dumb, but after all, it just makes sense,” junior Branden Ford said. “People were just messing around [in the bathrooms], but now that we have “bathroom D”, “bathroom A”, and all that, it’s pretty good, because there’s not too many people in just one bathroom.”

Both sides acknowledge that there are pros and cons.

“I do think it makes a lot of sense, because obviously there was a big issue with people wandering around and the faculty not knowing where people were supposed to be, but I also think it’s really inconvenient,” senior Lili Oviedo-Ortiz said. “There’s always a chance that someone else is going to take the pass and then roam around the hallways for like 20 minutes.”

Despite the controversy, it looks like this system is here to stay. Whether you like it or hate it, the hallways will remain empty for the time being.