When Mr. Sheldon’s voice comes through the speakers, people already know what he is going to say before it’s even said. We are conducting a hallway sweep! Audible groans echo through the hallway, but as I look around at my frustrated classmates, I don’t find myself upset. In fact I find myself just ignoring it. People around the halls complain about the hallway sweeps much of the time but I don’t believe that. If they were caught without a pass and they got in trouble that’s their fault and they should be accountable for it.
Hallway sweeps are the new hate for all the grades this year and personally I can’t understand why. I don’t dislike them or like them, I’m kind of in the middle, on the one hand the hallway sweeps are good to keep students in class and learning, but it’s also an inconvenience for when you get caught. I could understand the people who go out with a pass and get caught, but for the ones who go out without a pass, why? Why would you consider going out without a pass in the first place? Not only would you get in trouble from the teacher there might be a potential of a hallway sweep, and in my opinion that is just risky. Last year we didn’t have hallway sweeps at all and because of that I noticed many more kids outside of class without a pass. Even some of the teachers were not paying attention to their students leaving the class without a pass, but now when students who don’t take a pass get sent back to class teachers also become a target by the staff which is good.
Mr Holdren is a great resource on hallway sweeps so I interview him about them and here is what he has to say.
Mr. Holdren tells us the future of the hallway sweeps for this year and also how it is effective on students and teachers,
“The hallway sweeps will be continuing throughout the year. We found it very effective that students have a pass after class, and help teachers remind them to follow school policy and make kids have passes outside of class.”
Mr. Holdren points out his early suspicions of the hallway sweeps and how it would affect school students specifically. When I interviewed him I expected him to portray the hallway sweeps to be perfect and he fully believed in it, but it turns out he had miss conceptions about it.
“In my first few years as a principal I was against the hallway sweeps because I was worried about students who had a pass or coming from a doctor’s appointment and they stepped up, the process would take forever and get detention and for no good reason.”
Mr. Holdren addresses the students’ concerns about hallway sweeps taking too long and being tedious.
“The way we have been conducting the hallway sweeps is that it takes about 5 minutes to determine all the students have a pass, then we send them back to their class so I don’t think it has. A big impact on those students if it did I would discontinue them right away.”