Computer science teacher Kjeil Lease designed a digital hall pass system, and it has already been released school wide. The system keeps track of students by what classes they’re in and when they leave those rooms to use the restroom. 

“The goal of [the pass-o-matic] is to allow students to be able to check themselves in and out to go to the restroom, and it frees the teacher to do whatever needs to be done,” Lease said.

Coming up with the system was easy for Lease, as he previously had a background in IT before becoming a teacher. He worked for T-Mobile as a software test manager, among other positions up until four years ago, when he decided to leave his IT career to start teaching. 

A year ago, Lease started his idea by programming software from scratch and turning it into a system to track when students leave classrooms to go to the restroom. 

“I feel like it allows students to manage themselves like adults would,” journalism teacher Corey Hale said. “I don’t have to worry about the hand-raising in the middle of a discussion and interrupting my train of thought.” 

Pass-o-matic also takes into account the 15/15 rule. Students are not able to “clock out” for the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes of class. Along with not being able to go within 15/15, students will not be permitted to leave the classroom via the system, if they have already left earlier in that class period. 

“[The system] helps students keep track of the 15/15 rule because it has this red screen that shows them they can’t go, it’s really basic,” sophomore Carlos Reyna Cueeas said. 

While a student is in the halls using the pass, it displays the name of the student and how long the student has been out of the classroom for. More than 3,000 passes have been used by more than 500 students since its release in August. 

“It was kind of rocky at first, but it’s been pretty stable so far,” Lease said. “The goal is to get it usable and expand it to the teachers. We’re at the point where it’s worked great to hopefully get it across the whole campus. In the end, that’s the goal.”