School administrators have initiated a new bathroom policy and many students are not happy about the changes.

Earlier this month, the school’s administrators concluded that all classrooms must use the 5-Star digital bathroom pass to allow only 10 students for the entire school  to use the restroom in a given period. This decision was made to help with vandalism and inappropriate activity in the bathrooms.

5-Star is an app to help educators track students during school, like hall passes and bathroom uses, as well as at school activities and events, such as dances.  The app also allows for student voting and surveys taking and a reward system for the student store items.

Teachers have a computer open to the app for students to sign themselves in and out of the classroom.  If a pass is open for the bathroom, students will be able to leave the room.  If there are no available passes, then the student needs to wait and try again later that class period.  All students have a time limit of seven minutes to get to the bathroom, use the bathroom, and get to class before their seven minutes is up. The students are also limited to only two bathroom trips during all of their class periods. To make matters worse, some students have classes across campus and have to speed walk to get back in time.

Multiple students, and even teachers, have expressed their feelings about the new policy. 

“I think it’s really stupid. Why are there only 10 students out when there’s over 500 in the school?” an anonymous student reported. 

Another difficulty is that not all bathrooms are open, so students have to walk to the nearest available facility.  Keeping certain bathrooms closed allows security to be more available for the ones that are open.

“I don’t really use the bathroom, but I think it’s incredibly inconvenient. The 5 star app interrupts the class if you put your code in incorrectly with the loud noise it makes,” said Joanna Monobe (12). 

Security has access to the app as well in order to monitor students out of class.  Since students have a seven minute time limit, if they are out for longer, security around campus will be notified and will search around to find the student and return him or her to class.

There are many reports that administrators can pull from this app on classes overall, students as a whole, and individual students’ activities.