Torrington High School has decided to move away from the paper passes that have been used here for forever. THS is going to start using electronic passes in the upcoming weeks. There are many different reasons for this, but will it be for better, or for worse?

Torrington Middle School has been using electronic passes for the entire 24’-25’ school year and it has worked smoothly for them as they have had “Good experiences with it.” according to Mr. Scott. 

The main factors in choosing electronic passes were definitely the safety of the students. With electronic passes staff know where all the students are all the time and keeps a better track of everyone. 

The environmental and costly parts of paper passes were also heavily considered. The school goes through a whole lot of paper on the daily, including hundreds of passes a day. The cost also gets expensive with the amount of paper passes everyone uses. We frequently need to purchase more passes which is quite the expense. 

Mr. Scott doesn’t think that we will ever return to paper passes, “Unless we run into significant issues.” There are cons such as internet and connectivity issues we face daily. There are also the possible issues of the MacBooks. Other districts who have also switched to electronic passes mostly use chrome books. 

There are many pros mentioned earlier, but from what we know TMS has had a smooth ride and no significant issues with paper passes. 

I personally would rather like having paper passes due to the ease of just filling it out. I think that having electronic passes would over complicate it and I can see problems happening, but if the Middle School can do it I’m sure it will work fine. I think I’m just stubborn to change.