Waubonsie Valley High School has recently implemented a digital pass system for all students. To use the website, you're required to sign in, send a pass to the teacher, wait for the teacher to approve the pass and then you can go to the bathroom. The time limits are adjusted for each classroom, and once you return you have to end your pass or it will take space in the waiting line. This petition explains why this pass system is so unpopular with students, and why it should be removed.

The administrator's intention with the pass system is to reduce class skipping and to know where all students are if there is an emergency situation. While the pass system does solve these problems, it creates a lot more difficult ones as a result. Many kids at this school have special needs, even more people are women. Most women have a period every month that they can't control. The time limit on the passes is concerning. A child just entering puberty could be figuring out how to use a tampon for the first time, or cramps may be bad that day. If an officer/teacher is sent to check up on these women, it could turn an already painful situation uncomfortable. Furthermore, if you are diagnosed with IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome) there is no guarantee that you will get to go to the bathroom when it's an emergency. With the pass system, every single teacher has their own rules set in place and set bathrooms. If it is an emergency situation and you're forced to go through the pass system, or if you have just started your period but are too nervous to tell anyone, then what is the point of trying to solve skipping class by shaming special needs kids and women just needing to use the bathroom?

Teachers do not seem happy with this change either. Teachers in the US are overworked and underpaid already, and while Illinois is better than some states, there is no excuse to shove brand new technology on them and make them manage several kids needing to use the bathroom every day. Not every class is compatible with the system either. Classes like woods, foods, sculpture, painting, autoshop, cosmic journey, self defense and the majority of music and PE subjects will suffer instead of benefit from a pass system. Kids in these classes are technology-free, hands off already. What is the point of implementing more technology if these classes have little to nothing to do with technology? You can't be working with a saw, have your hands dirty in painting, or be measuring ingredients and just pull out your phone or chromebook in the middle of class-- and neither can teachers. 

When we the seniors were asked how they liked the pass system in our assembly, there was no positive reaction. This system is taking away from hands-on learning, violating special needs students and women, creating more stress for teachers and is simply awfully executed. Similar pass systems have broken, been too full up in the queue, or passes have been forgotten about, leading to students who truly need to go without an option to do so.

Using the bathroom is not a privilege, it is a human need. This pass system is going to have more problems created and problems solved. End the pass system, and find a different, non-invasive way for students to learn and tend to their needs at the same time.