By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Throw the old agenda books out the window. At Tuesday's USD 428 Board of Education Luncheon at Great Bend Middle School, Principal Myron Ellegood explained how technology is impacting student traffic in the hallways. Last year, the school piloted EHallPass technology. This year the school purchased the program.
"The EHallPass is basically a digital pass system where the kids can sign into their Chromebook and it will take account of every time they're out of the classroom," Ellegood said. "Where they went and how long they're gone for."
The software keeps track of how many passes each student is given so staff can look into potential issues when students abuse the privilege. Settings allow staff to limit the number of students in the hallways at any given time, or to limit the number of passes given for a certain location at any one moment.
"We've seen a dramatic decline in bathroom and restroom issues with, not only the EHallPass system, but having one student out of the classroom instead of multiple, as well," said Ellegood. "This has been a really neat program for us."
For years, the school used old-fashioned agenda books to track hall traffic. The new system was largely paid for by doing away with those agenda books.