This year, Freehold High School introduced a new system regarding the hall and bathroom passes. In previous years, students could leave the room without passes as long as their teacher approved, but this year color-coded passes serve as students’ proof that they are allowed to leave class and go to certain bathrooms. Administrators came up with this arrangement to try and reduce hallway traffic and overcrowded bathrooms, but this new method seemed to do the opposite. 

Many students feel that the new bathroom pass system is not as effective as it was supposed to be. This ineffectiveness is not only due to the fact that only two people are allowed in the bathroom at a time, even though the bathrooms have up to five stalls, but also because there just are not enough bathrooms in the school. The idea of only letting one student leave the classroom at a time was intended to help resolve this issue, but it has just made the lines longer and increased demand for the bathrooms that cannot be used. This creates disruptions both in and out of the classroom because students are rushing to be first in line to use the restroom because they know that if there are more than four people ahead of them, they most likely will not be able to go for the next hour and fifteen minutes.

Overall, the idea of implementing mandatory bathroom passes was a good one, but it was not executed in a way that allowed it to actually be successful. Freehold Boro still deals with painfully long lines and wait times that result in students missing upwards of five to ten minutes of class time just because they need to use the restroom. One way to resolve this issue would be to take advantage of the fact that the majority of the bathrooms have five stalls, allowing four or five kids to use the bathroom instead of only two. This would cut the wait time in half, meaning students would be missing less class time. Along with that, teachers can let two students, one boy and one girl, out of the class at a time to ensure that everyone who needs to go has the opportunity to do so.