No Hall Pass? No Problem.

Jamesville- DeWitt High School Band Director Ronald Nuzzo can remember the use of the infamous hall passes ever since he started his job here in 1962. Back then, they were taken "very seriously," Mr. Nuzzo says. But are they now?

Despite the niftiness of hall passes, many students do not find a need for them and have barely used any of the 232 passes on the back pages of their planner this year. "I've used, like, 10 this whole year," said freshman Cameron Buck. She says, "not a lot of teachers check (planner passes)," which is most likely why many students do not feel the need to carry them around. "If you're wandering the hall, your teacher's going to know," Buck said.

Junior Shelby Weinstein, on the other hand, says that she uses passes "all the time. I'm afraid of Mr. Benedict," Weinstein says. Sophomore Dan Ortega confirms that Mr. Benedict is the only teacher who checks passes in the hall. This means that he is asked to show a pass "only after Church School on Tuesday mornings" when Mr. Benedict is in the hall. Junior Alex Lesser also agrees with Weinstein on the amount of passes people use. "A lot of people use passes because if they need to go somewhere it's the only way they can," he said. But he does say that passes can be "not really convenient" if you only have to run to the bathroom or water fountain quickly. At those times, Lesser thinks it doesn't seem necessary to take a pass.

Biology teacher and hall monitor Amy Quinn says that hall passes are very important. They make sure that "people in the hall have a reason to be so," Mrs. Quinn said. Buck says that they are meant to "prevent mischief," but Mrs. Quinn says that she always asks students for their passes and often catches kids without them.

Hall monitor Jim Tuck says that he catches about five to 10 students without a pass each day, most of these violations occurring during lunch periods. However, there is no real punishment for those caught in the hallways; they are just sent back to class or lunch to get a pass from the teacher. Coach Tuck says that many students don't use a pass because of poor planning. When they need to see a teacher during lunch or another time in the day it is very last minute, so they just go without one, he said. The other reason students don't use passes, Coach Tuck says, is because not enough teachers find them necessary. Senior Emma Esposito agrees, saying, "teachers are too lenient." Coach Tuck says that when a teacher is in the middle of a lesson or working with a student they don't have time to stop and sign a pass. They just assume that the student is going to the bathroom, will be quick and not wander the halls.

However, Mr. Nuzzo says that he has "always signed passes. If everybody came out of class without passes they could hide," he said. That's not a problem to Buck, though. "The kids who are skipping should just be marked absent," she says.

Spanish teacher Hank Cline also requires his students to use passes. "It's the school policy. Students need to be accounted for it," said Mr. Cline.

All students interviewed agree that freshman use hall passes more often then upperclassmen. "Freshmen are paranoid," said Weinstein. "People are more likely to pick on them than upperclassmen in the hallway," she says. Upperclassmen use passes less because "they are older so they are trusted more and their teachers don't really require them," said Ortega. Esposito says that freshmen use passes more than upperclassmen do because they are new to the high school. "As they go through the years at the high school they become comfortable with thinking that they can get away with (not having a pass)," Esposito said. Buck agrees; she says that when she is a senior she will most likely never use passes.

Despite the many reasons for not having a pass, Coach Tuck says that about 85 to 90 percent of students do follow the rules and carry passes.

Weinstein is in the same ballpark, saying that probably about 75 percent of the student population uses hall passes.

Mr. Cline has much more confidence in J-DHS students than the other two. "I would like to think that 100 percent (of the students use passes)," he said, "but the reality is that maybe it's only 99."

Ironically, while going to interview for this article, I myself never used a pass and was never questioned.