by Piotr Popiel-Machnicki ‘26

Bathroom passes: a waste of paper, time, and patience. Schools claim they’re inevitable for order, but let’s be real—if a student really wants to skip class, some slip of paper won’t stop them. Meanwhile, those who actually need to use the bathroom are stuck waiting endlessly for a teacher to agree on their basic human right. Beyond the inconvenience, the system is flawed. Passes get stolen, rewritten, or ignored. Some teachers don’t even check them, so what’s the point? Others refuse to let students go at all. And if a teacher runs out of passes, are we supposed to just hold it until the next class? The worst part? Some bathrooms aren’t even open, and the ones that are—well, good luck finding one that’s clean.

Instead of clinging to outdated, wasteful policies, why not go digital? Sherwood is already pushing ID policies—why not integrate a scan system? Then, we’d at least save some trees while keeping track of students in a more efficient way. The bathroom pass system isn’t just not handy, but also it’s an unnecessary blockade to basic human needs. It’s time to get rid of this broken system and rethink how we should actually handle student rights. If schools actually care about efficiency and responsibility, they should choose solutions that work—not policies that belong in the past.