The 2025 school year brings with it a new system for daily procedure, shaking up the set in stone routines for going about a school day. “Securly Pass,” the new app for restroom usage and tracking, establishes itself as a bump in the road for a student’s typical back to school routine.
The set up of the app is clear cut; A student goes to their “MyApps” page on their Chromebook, navigates to the Securly Pass icon, enters the location of their current class and where they plan to go, and are then able to start their pass if there is less than four people in that specific bathroom.
“It’s not bad, it’s just a lot of work,” junior Amelia Moore said. “To get out your laptop, log in, make sure you’ve got the location of the teacher ready, and then be told that you can’t because there’s someone in there.”
The intended outcome of incorporating the app into the school system is to provide a way to safely combat traffic in restrooms, and to keep students on track and organized.
“The bathroom is for going to the bathroom, washing your hands, not for doing the stuff [students] were doing in the bathroom,” Astronomy and Chemistry teacher Doug Showell said. “Now a normal student can use the bathroom like it was intended for.”
Per sociology teacher Emily Thies’s class, a student body survey was conducted, surveying students about how they feel about the new pass system. Out of a pool of 80 students around the school, 87.5% do not like the new pass system, and 80% said the system discourages them from using the bathroom.
“It is strict, I do feel like it does restrict freedom a little,” sophomore Elliot Cich said. “We’re being tracked everywhere we go now.”
For students and staff alike, the new policy will take some time to get used to. With every new thing comes with it a learning curve, but there are things to make the adaptive process smoother. Students can “favorite” teachers whose class they frequently use the restroom in, and save regularly visited locations into the app.
“As we get used to using it, as students start to figure it out, and us teachers start to figure it out, it will get more efficient as we go along,” Showell said.
