Over 1 million students and schools across the country use SmartPass to manage hall passes, improve time on task, reduce disruption, and ensure that all students feel safe and are accounted for. Over the past school year, we’ve launched Recurring Future Passes, Disabling Mobile Phones, Making Pass Limits Only Count Toward Certain Rooms, Wait in Line, Alert Sounds, and more.
We’re excited to bring the latest innovation to hall passes, returning to our fundamentals with some ground-breaking updates. So we don’t disrupt any workflows you had set up, we are designing the new features in a way that you’ll be able to opt-out of almost everything. Then, as an administrator you can roll it out when you’re ready.
Students will immediately see all of the locations that they can go to. They’ll no longer have to pick “From where?” are they going — and so many more benefits.
With student schedules, we’ll know where the student currently is. So in just 1 click, a student can make a pass from Mr. Franco’s 3rd Period Algebra to the Bathroom.
Now, when the time runs out – the screen will turn bright red, so the teacher can see that the student should have returned by now. It shows bright red on Hall Monitor and Kiosk Mode, too.
Now, you can set it so only the closest bathrooms, water fountains, etc. will show up for students! That way, you ensure that students aren’t going to the bathroom across the building when one of them is full, or accidentally pick the wrong one.
We wanted to make it really easy for students to get to their current class they’re supposed to be in.
For example, if a students comes in late to school for a Tardy. Using Kiosk Mode, a student is 1 tap away from choosing their correct location. The student doesn’t have to search for their classroom – this is automatically correct based on their assigned class from your SIS. Not only is this faster, but it verifies that the student is actually going to the classroom they should be going to.
From our research of 100+ different use cases of SmartPass, many school have scenarios where students stay at a certain location. Now, if a student is visiting a room with a teacher, the student or teacher will select if they’re returning back to class right away (“Grab n’ Go”), or will be staying (“Here for a bit”).
It ensures that all teachers stay informed, more accurate info is captured.
If a student goes to the Library to quickly pick up a Library book, when they check-in, they’ll select “Grab n’ Go.” Immediately, they’ll have a return pass back to Mr. Franco’s room.
Mr. Franco will see that they’re on their way back, and the Librarian will see when they returned. It’s a win-win.
If a student is staying there for a while…It places an update on Hailey’s schedule, showing that she’s now at the Library!
Want to let students go to the bathroom without your approval? Done. Want to make sure students get your approval before you have a scheduled pass with them? Done.
Plus, in some situations, students will need both teachers to approve. For example, Mrs. Magrove and the Nurse. Done.
Stepping out of your room? Need time to grade papers? Set yourself as away.
You can schedule this, too.
From feedback from literally thousands of teachers using SmartPass, we’re refreshing the home screen to put the most important information at your fingertips. For example...
Right now it’s Period 3 Algebra, but when it’s Period 4, the screen will automatically switch. You’ll see that Johnny and Lisa are both in the Bathroom. Leo (who’s supposed to be in your class), is staying at the Library. And Monique is returning to class from the Main Office. I’m able to see the rest of my student’s roster below them. Plus, I can approve Simon’s pass and end Lisa's pass, both in 1-click.
You’ll get the 360-degree view of a student’s time out of class.
In one unified view, you’ll see which classes Thomas has missed more often, combining pass data and SmartPass attendance data.
If there’s any kind of school emergency, in 1 click, administrators can place their building into Emergency Mode.
They can send messages out to teachers and see live-updating location check-ins on student locations.
While an emergency is ongoing, the teacher’s device is transformed into Emergency Mode.
Teachers will be instructed to confirm if any students have entered their classroom from the hallway.
We’re making it even easier for you to identify students abusing their hall privileges. You’ll see which students have missed the most class time and created the most passes.
Plus, see which staff are using and not using SmartPass, including number of passes issued, approved, and overridden. And see which rooms are most common.
We’ve made scheduling passes 10x easier. A new Calendar View will show a teacher’s weekly schedule, including any existing scheduled passes they have. When scheduling a pass with a student, you’ll see the student’s schedule side-by-side to find the best time to meet. All teachers will be notified once it’s scheduled, including the class the student will be missing.
Plus, you can now add scheduled passes to Google and Microsoft calendars. (Coming Soon)
Now, students and teachers will be able to leave unlimited comments on passes — so when the student isn’t right in front of you, you’ll see why the student needs to leave. It can save a trip and increase time spent in class!
For privacy and security reasons, only that student, teachers associated with the pass, and administrators will be able to view comments.
You’ll now be able to prevent passes from being created outside school hours. What’s great is that these times will come in automatically from your SIS, no extra set up – and you can adjust them manually!
Many of our schools prevent students from creating passes during the first 5 or 10 minutes of the period. You’ll now be able to easily turn this on – and automatically block all passes from being created during those times.
Since we integrate with your SIS, we’ll know the current student’s schedule. It’s now 1-click to call a student down to your room.
You’ll no longer need to find out where the student is, phone call the teacher, disrupt critical teaching time, and embarrass the student because they know they’re being sent to the main office.
When a student and teacher receive the pass, it will no longer automatically start. The student or the teacher will have to start the pass, so you’ll know when you can expect them to arrive.
When a student is called down, the teacher will get an alert sound, too. Also, you can specify a reason for the pass. At a glance, students and teachers know why you’re requesting them.
Admins can set a building-wide active pass limit so that no matter what, they can make sure there aren’t more than a certain number of students in the hallways.
If students try to “extend” time on their passes by just creating another pass, you’ll be able to prevent this by setting a “cooldown-time” so students can’t create consecutive passes.
We’ve added a ton of new filters, so you’ll be able to get the data you need. You’ll be able to filter by The Entire Pass’s Duration, How long the pass was Overtime” for, Pass was Auto-Ended, Filter by a comment, Filter by the name of the pass, Approved by, Is it recurring?, Created by, Prevented by Encounter Prevention, and more.
Plus, the list will now include Scheduled Passes and Requests.
Over the past few years, we’ve been hearing that so many schools have been trying to set up a Flex period, or as some schools call it: “Mascot” time, Tutorial Period, Activity Period, or Advisory.
This is where you set up a block of time, whether it’s every day, once per week, etc. and students can sign up for enrichment activities, academic support club meetings, and others during the school day. Teachers can also pull students during this special period, for example to make up a test.
Flex Periods allow for struggling students to get the help they need during the school day. Research shows that implementing Flex periods increase graduation rates.
We’re launching SmartPass Flex, a brand-new product to help schools set up these new schedules. It’s built directly into SmartPass, and works alongside your existing passes, calendar, etc. It’s seamless.
As an administrator, setting up your Flex Period is easy.
Navigate to the Admin view and Create a New Flex Period. You can give it a custom name, for example, “Eagle Time.”
Next, you’ll select the course(s) from your SIS that represent “Eagle Time” in your SIS. Or, you can set this up manually too. For example, if you just want the Flex period for the 12th graders on Monday. Almost any combination is possible. (Coming Soon)
Teachers will create the Flex activities that they want to offer, whether that’s office hours, extra help sessions, club meetings, etc.
Teachers can make it a public event so that any student (or only certain students) can sign up for it. They can set a max capacity too.
After the activity is created, teachers can add students: for example, in 1-click add their entire Biology roster, or just certain students to a session.
At the beginning of the week, students will get an email reminding them to sign up for this week’s Flex activities.
Students can choose from activities offered during their Flex, if they haven’t already been placed into an activity by a teacher. Of course, teachers can override a student’s selection as well.
Flex activities can be used for so much more than just running a Flex period: Assemblies, Lunch Sign-ups, College Visits, Proms, Basketball Games, you name it.
We can’t wait to hear about all of the ways you use it.
We’ve heard so much from schools that they struggle with having an easy way to take daily, per-class, and per-activity attendance. It’s cumbersome for teachers to take attendance inside your SIS, or it’s expensive to purchase physical attendance scanners.
We’re launching SmartPass Attendance, a brand-new product to help schools easily capture attendance data. Its build directly into SmartPass, and works alongside your existing data.
For daily attendance, attendance per-class (ex. Period 3 Biology), or on Flex activities, teachers can easily take attendance to see which students are present, absent, or late to class. (Coming Soon)
If a student arrives late to class, they will be marked as late — and a default timestamp is recored of how much time they missed of that class.
Schools can enable their existing SmartPass Kiosks (any device that can connect to the web, including old Chromebooks and iPads) to take attendance. When a student walks into class, they type their ID number in, or Scan their ID Card. (Coming Soon)
This works great for high-traffic areas such as the front entrance or the cafeteria. Plus, you can use the device’s camera to scan the the Student’s ID Card.
If a student does not have access to a certain class or activity, it will show that they do not have permission.
If a student doesn’t have permission to visit a certain location, they’ll get a warning that they don’t have access.
Depending on your SIS, you may be able to import SmartPass Attendance data into your SIS for easy reporting.
Please speak with your SIS provider to see if importing Attendance via CSV files are supported, or reach out to us for support.
Schools love Digital ID Cards. They are the secure, affordable solution for students to use to scan for Attendance, cafeteria purchases, library books, etc.
It takes schools less than 5 minutes to create, customize, and distribute — because they are built directly into SmartPass, leveraging the same information that’s already in your SmartPass system.
Add stickers to ID cards — great for things like bus numbers, cafeteria privileges, and anything else you can imagine. Admins can easily set up stickers to show for all students, just certain students, upload a CSV, and more.
To make the cards as secure as possible, the ID Cards will now be screenshot and video-proof, so students aren’t able to share cards with each other. There will be a moving element on the card, so that someone knows that the card is active!
For even more customization, you’ll now be able to change the color of the ID Cards per-grade level.
For example, you can set it up so that all of the students have Blue ID Cards, but the seniors who have special permission for something have a Green ID Card.
If an administrator allows it, the cards will be available to be added inside Apple Wallet so that students can access them if they have low Wi-Fi connectivity
If certain students don’t have access to a device, you’re able to print the students ID Cards and distribute a paper copy.
