Perry Community School District: Reducing Disruptions and Keeping Students in Class With GoGuardian Hall Pass
When Andrew McCormick assumed his role as associate principal at Perry High School, he quickly identified a core challenge related to attendance and instructional time. As he explained, the issue wasn’t necessarily students acting out, but rather “literally class time: Time in seats, time on content.”
Before adopting a digital hall pass system in GoGuardian Hall Pass, teachers each managed who was out of class differently. Some relied on handwritten passes, while others asked students to write their names on the board, or even used informal verbal permission. According to McCormick, “every teacher had their own system,” and despite ongoing efforts, “it was a work in progress. We were never really super solidified.”
That lack of consistency made it difficult for teachers and administrators to see the full picture. While McCormick could observe patterns as an administrator, he had no way to validate those patterns with data. He noted there was “zero way” for teachers to identify trends and communicate concerns across class periods.
“In the past, there was no way for teachers to communicate something like, ‘Hey, you don’t need to let Steven use the bathroom. He just said he had to go to the bathroom during the last class period and was gone for 15 minutes,’” he gave as an example.
As a result, lost instructional time often went unaddressed. It wasn’t because the staff didn’t care, but because they didn’t have shared data or visibility into who was going where, when.
Looking for a way to bring consistency, accountability, and insight into time out of class, Perry High School began exploring a more data-driven approach with GoGuardian Hall Pass.
The challenge
Perry High School faced ongoing issues related to attendance, tardiness, and students leaving class for extended periods without a reliable way to visually represent or communicate those patterns.
As McCormick put it, “We had absolutely no way to track data in terms of kids being gone during class.” While the school had some information on tardies and truancy, teachers lacked visibility into how often and how long students were leaving class during instructional time.
This made it difficult to answer basic questions like, “Why has this student been gone for 20 minutes when they said they just needed to use the bathroom?”
The plan
Perry High School faced ongoing issues related to attendance, tardiness, and students leaving class for extended periods without a reliable way to visually represent or communicate those patterns.
The school implemented GoGuardian HallPass to help create a consistent, data-driven system for providing students with the ability to move about the campus while ensuring they maximize instructional time.
One of the biggest benefits, according to McCormick, was that “it becomes quantifiable. There’s data with this. We can see how many kids have passes as well as how long they’re gone.”
By setting clear logic, including limits on how frequently students could leave class, the system helped remove guesswork. As McCormick explained, a student can only be provided one pass every 30 minutes. “That way, we know they won’t be able to skip class 15 or 20 minutes later.”
The impact
The rollout of GoGuardian Hall Pass emphasized ease of use and collaboration. Within the first week of implementation, teachers noticed immediate changes. After an initial trial period, staff reconvened to share feedback. “It was overwhelmingly positive responses,” McCormick said. Ultimately, the decision to move forward was unanimous.
“One of the pieces of feedback I got from the teachers was, ‘it was amazing within that first week when we implemented this, just how many people realized they didn’t have to leave my class anymore,’” McCormick shared. “When we put some onus on the students to make the pass and own the system - to be accountable for their actions - I think they’re going to become more deliberate and honest with when they actually need to leave the class, versus, 'Well, I just want to leave and walk around and see my friends for a while.’”
Teachers reported dramatic reductions in class disruptions. As McCormick recalled, “They were coming to me saying, ‘I went from having, like, seven people a class period ask me to leave to one.’”
Beyond reducing unnecessary trips, GoGuardian Hall Pass gave administrators and teachers shared visibility. Instead of relying on assumptions, staff could now reference concrete data.
“The credibility and quantifiable data are there,” McCormick said, making it easier to have productive conversations with students and address patterns before they escalate.
That visibility also allows staff to be proactive about student safety. One of the biggest selling points, McCormick noted, is the ability to ensure specific students are not in the hallways at the same time.
In one instance, GoGuardian Hall Pass helped administrators enforce a no-contact agreement tied to an ongoing bullying situation. By placing the students into an exclusionary group, staff ensured they wouldn’t run into each other, removing opportunities for continued harassment and giving the affected student space to move safely throughout the day. For McCormick, this kind of proactive intervention highlights how hallway visibility can directly support student well-being.
“Having the ability to say…these kids can’t be together because they are harassing each other, or bullying each other, or they’re ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend, and they’re slinging mud at each other has been really great,” he said. “And I think that’s a huge selling point to caregivers and community members.”
Conclusion
For Perry High School, adopting GoGuardian Hall Pass was a simple choice. “When we got an email saying GoGuardian was rolling out a digital hall pass product, we were already invested and involved with them. We already had a lot of familiarity with the platform and concept, and the fact that it was able to integrate well with what we already have, it was kind of a no-brainer,” McCormick stated.
By implementing GoGuardian Hall Pass, the school transformed previously anecdotal observations into actionable data. McCormick thinks one of the biggest benefits of adopting a solution like GoGuardian Hall Pass is that everything becomes quantifiable.
In addition, the familiarity and integration with existing systems made adoption effortless. “As teachers, we get platform fatigue. You have to use this tool for that, and this tool for this, etc. The more a school can streamline and consolidate, I think that's really helpful.”
With GoGuardian Hall Pass, Perry High School found a solution that was not only effective in reducing disruptions and reclaiming instructional time but also simple to adopt, intuitive for staff, and fully supported by data-driven insights.