New hall pass program on campus hopes to curb classroom disruption; enhance school safety and securi

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — Lake Brantley High School will begin using a new app program when they return back to school on Jan. 8.

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Minga is considered the next generation” Hall Pass” on campus and it could be a real game changer when it comes to school safety and security.

Minga, which Principal Brian Blasewitz described as a Facebook like school specific app that can give parents and students announcements and information on things like after school activities seamlessly with other student management systems. “So it is kind of a one stop shop for everything, for the teachers,” says Blasewitz.

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Minga can also create a digital receipt for students when they are unsupervised outside of the classroom.

“Before, whenever we would give a kid a hall pass to go to the bathroom, or go to the water fountain or go see their school counselor, we would just have to act kind of good faith that the student was going to do what they were supposed to be doing and coming back in a timely fashion,” says Blasewitz. “Now we have a digital receipt of every kid that is going to be unsupervised on campus, and when they were unsupervised. In the case of an emergency.”

Minga can tell school staff who run into a student in the hallway if they have been out of the classroom too long and their pass has expired, which can help with student discipline.

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Lake Brantley set up the app so that a certain amount of the student population can be out of the classroom at one time. 

The app also will not allow students to interrupt instructional time within the first ten minutes and last ten minutes of class, giving teachers an option to tell students they cannot leave the classroom.

The hope is it will cut down on the number of students skipping instructional time and it will also be able to deny students a hall pass, in cases where students are under a no contact contract.

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“Then it kind of takes it off of the teacher, and it’s not the teacher’s fault. It’s the system’s fault,” says Blasewitz.

When it comes to school security and safety, Blasewitz says Minga will be crucial if there is an incident on campus. 

School staff will know which students are in class and which students are not, which could provide valuable information during a chaotic time.

“So if there were a real emergency on campus, we would have a digital timestamp and a digital footprint of who was out of class at the time,” says Blasewitz. “It could be a really good opportunity for the school when it comes to reunifying the students with their parents, or even worked with law enforcement to say, who was  here in class and who wasn’t in class at the time.”

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