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THE
LITTLE HAWK Vol. 104
Iowa City, IA
October 12, 2023
Issue 1
City High administration enforces use of SmartPass for all students
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Spoked to cycle Caius Connolly ‘24 and Laine Forbes ‘24 request a pass to the nurse. PHOTO BY ROSANGEL FLORES RUBIO
Lily Rantanen ‘26 uses SmartPass. PHOTO BY YOMI HEMLEY
This school year’s implementation of SmartPass
By Claire Hartwig
proves to be effective in improving attendance By Yomi Hemley
“I do think there’s a problem with attendance, but I just don’t know that for the majority of people, it’s an issue,” Rachel Matel ‘25 said. With the data staff members like Ms. Scudder get from SmartPass, Last year, a major concern of the administration was attendance. With they are able to help students better. Specifically, they are able to see the a daily attendance rate of only 89% last year, the administration decided correlation between time students spend out of the classroom in a week to take action against the many students littering the hallway instead of and how it may impact their grades. being in class. So this year, the new program SmartPass, has been imple“I think they’re effective again because they show us extra data of when mented to stop unexcused absences. a student is not in the classroom and how much time they’re spending “My primary role this year in administration is attendance. I thought outside of the classroom. We only get so much time with our students in that [SmartPass] was a really good way for me to get a better picture a day and it’s really important that we utilize all of those minutes, that way of why students are not always in their classrooms and where they’re we can help everybody learn,” Scudder said. spending their time when they’re not in the classroom” SmartPasses are new to everyone, including member of administration Taylor Scudder said. teachers. Because of this, some teachers have also South East Junior High started using SmartPass last struggled to adapt. year, inspiring City High to do the same. “I’m pretty much a novice with it. I don’t have a “STUDENT ARE “One of the administrators over there started telling well-informed opinion. I think that’s true for most of us BEING us the things that it does to help us track data around teachers. It seems like it’ll be a good idea,” Math teacher COGNITIVE.. attendance,” Scudder said, “So we started having those Matt Miller said. THEY’RE conversations last year, and then over the summer, we Despite the initial struggle, staff has had a generally THINKING ABOUT positive reaction. got integrated with the program, and I started setting it WHETHER THEY up here at City High. This is our first year using Smart“I think anything that helps keep track of where Passes,” people are is a good thing. There are 1600 students in REALLY NEED There are multiple ways that administrators monitor the building. So knowing where people are is pretty A PASS OUT SmartPasses so that they can see who is going where and important,” Mr. Miller said. OF CLASS” for how long. Although SmartPasses seem to help administrators Taylor Scudder “SmartPass has a home monitor system. So there’s a and staff, students might not share the same sentiment screen that shows all of the supervisory staff and adminand question the efficiency of SmartPasses. istrators who have created a pass throughout the day, “I feel annoyed when I have to pull out my whole how much time is left in that pass, where that pass is going to and coming Chromebook just to go somewhere,” Rachel Matel ‘25 said, “I’m not sure from, and then which passes are expired” Scudder said. how effective they’ve been this year, but I can’t imagine them being super SmartPasses aren’t just helping students get their attendance up, but effective just because people who would abuse it may choose to just skip they are also helping them learn. class or not use SmartPass.” “One of the things that I’m hearing from teachers is that students are Administration, however, acknowledges student’s struggles with being cognitive or they’re thinking about whether they really need a pass SmartPasses. out of class because it does take an extra step to get out of the classroom. “With anything new, there’s some resistance. It’s not a perfect system So if students are not creating passes outside of the classroom, they are right now,” Ms. Scudder said, “I just want to give students the opportuinside of the classrooms getting the learning that they’re supposed to,” nity to contact me if they have any questions about SmartPass, if they still Scudder said. don’t understand why we think this system works, or if they want to give Attendance is a big worry for administrators, but students view the any feedback to me. I am always open to feedback and making the system attendance issue from a different perspective. easier for all of you.”
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