Some teachers use bathrooms passes and others just let you jolly trot to the restroom as you please. Some students find passes practical while others think they are annoying. “I think bathroom passes are stupid,” said Freshman Mackenzie Garrett. “It kind of feels [like I’m being treated like] a kid.”
One concern is that students will ask to go just to avoid spending time in class. Science teacher Jenn Sheedy handles this by letting one kid at a time use the restroom as many times as they want in the quarter, as long as they sign their name on the front board. “It minimizes people raising their hands and saying, ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’, since it’s something they can take care of by themselves. [I also enforce it] to keep people in the classroom as much as possible and not to have 5 people messing around in the hallway,” she said.
Most world language classes and various others have a set amount of maximum passes you may use per quarter. “Limiting people to use the bathroom is stupid because sometimes you just go to go… I know I have to [go] more than six times a year,” said Freshman Alex Hage.
German teacher Frau Strassburg on the other hand enforces the bathroom pass policy rule, “I have it the way I do simply because students think twice about missing class. A lot of students say they’ll take care of it before or after class and that way they’re not missing that time in class.” However, this doesn’t mean that students can’t go if they’ve used all of their passes, “I’m not going to not allow them to do so, they can go [if they need to], but for the most part, I think it does cut down on people leaving class. I think it’s important that they stay in class [as much as possible].”
Freshman Emma Adams sees both sides of the argument, “[Passes] can be helpful, depending on the class. Both have pluses and minuses.”
