Change is coming to Eagle High, and it’s safe to say the digital age is making an impact. The new hall policy makes it mandatory that phones are used to sign out, so pen and paper are no longer needed.

On March 25, the day after spring break, a new hall policy was implemented. Students will no longer be allowed to leave for 15 minutes at the start of class and 15 minutes before the end of class.

To sign out, students must use their phone to scan a QR code on a piece of paper where a form must be completed.

The policy was inspired by multiple sources.

“Many high schools utilize freeze time and no phones in the hallways,” said administrator Mackenzie Dodd. “The digital hall pass was from recent education podcasts and research articles online.”

With approximately 1,600 students across Eagle High, hallway traffic is very high. Administrators deemed that due to heavy hallway traffic, a change needed to be made mid-year.

With this change, administrators have noticed improvements in hallway traffic.

“We have already noticed a dramatic improvement in achieving the goal of more instructional time,” Dodd said.

In the first week of the new hall pass, 3,223 hall passes were used. In the second week the numbers drastically fell all the way to 1,858 hall passes used. The third week, it fell even farther down to 1,384 hall passes used (prior to third and fourth period on Friday).

The development of this policy was not only administrators’ ideals. Eagle High administrators took notes from other high schools in West Ada, as well as talking to the Student Leadership team for the design.

Along with the policy, a universal rule was developed where students must leave their phone in the classroom.

Overall, this change was made this late into the school year to maximize instructional time for teachers and reduce hallway traffic.