Butler Area Senior High School cuts down on fights with new technology

BUTLER COUNTY, Pa. — Butler Area Senior High School was dealing with dozens of fights, but that has gone down drastically.

School leaders said a digital hall pass is a gamechanger and fixing many problems.

“It just really seemed like this year the fighting and stuff amped up,” said parent Tonya Briggs.

Briggs is one of several parents who’s been concerned over the increase in fights and drug issues at Butler. Superintendent Brian White said they had at least 24 incidents in the fall. But in January, the school implemented a Smart Pass app that has helped tremendously.

“Over the course of January into February, we had zero incidents of fights,” said Jason Hoffman, the high school’s co-principal.

Hoffman believes they are the first school in the area to use it. Students create a hall pass on their electronic device. Then the teacher approves or denies the request including the amount of time they leave the classroom and where the student is going in the building.

“It gives us real-time data. It’s very specific for students. I can go in there and see the number of times they’ve been out of class, the number of hours they’ve been out a week, I can collect data monthly,” said Hoffman.

It also limits the number of kids in the hallways and restricts them from going in certain areas of the school at certain times. Before, students would just use a paper slip.

“You would find that students would forge different passes, they would hold passed from previous days, they would write passes to use the restroom but then they would congregate in certain areas of the building,” said Hoffman.

The app has gained interest from other local districts, too.

“We’ve definitely had a number of school districts reach out, asking to come visit us to see the software and see how the students and staff work with it,” said White.

The superintendent said there’s been positive feedback from teachers and parents.

“I have a son who’s going to be a freshman next year so to hear that, that’s great,” said Briggs.

The superintendent said other tools they put in place have helped too, like adding after-school programs, increasing staff in the hallways, continued support from local police and creating a new county detective position that’s focused on school issues. Though that position has not been filled yet.

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