As of this October, 2025, Bernards High School is piloting a new bathroom sign-in policy, the second substantial difference that Bernards has made involving Genesis. The idea of a digital hall pass has been discussed by administration for the past couple of years, and through an application on Genesis they are able to put this idea to action.
Schools in other districts have already incorporated digital hall passes and bathroom passes into their school. Some schools have a digital sign-out accessible through a student’s Chromebook. However, as the BHS curriculum is not reliant on Chromebooks in all classes, this is not a feasible solution.
BHS is piloting a Genesis management system called Turnstile which is a check in and check out procedure. Since the Genesis gradebook was introduced last year, many new applications have become available, including the sign in and sign out application. While the idea of a virtual bathroom and hall pass is a change that has been talked about over the past few years, with the recent introduction of Genesis, there is an available system that can be piloted. So far, there are about seven teachers who are piloting the Turnstile application.
“There are definitely pros and cons being that, it’s really new, it’s definitely something to adjust to,” said Ms. Clark, one of the teachers piloting the new Turnstile application, “But the students are doing a good job with checking in. Everyone is getting used to the new system.”
Due to the fact that this is a new program that is piloted, both students and faculty are still adjusting to the virtual hall pass. And while this is an arguably useful new protocol, there are some shortcomings that may need to be addressed.
“There’s a limit, four people into the female bathroom and four into the male bathroom at a time.” Said Ms. Clark, “So it does get a little backed up if we have too many people.”
Generally the amount of people allowed in the bathroom is limited by the amount of available stalls, however, this has caused somewhat of a backup in the hallways with people waiting for their turn to use the bathroom.
“Sometimes I have to wait in a line to go to the bathroom,” said Kaylin Burns ‘26, “Especially at lunch, there’s only four people allowed in at once. And we have to wait outside the bathroom for people to come out and since it’s lunch, everyone’s going to the bathroom.”
Many students use lunch as a time to go to the bathroom, however, due to the excessive amount of kids all with the same idea, there is usually a wait before one can use the restroom. The question becomes whether the bathrooms have always had a back up during these periods or if the new protocol is the cause for the traffic. Although with the new sign in process, perhaps students will be deterred from frequent bathroom breaks thus alleviating the traffic.
By using a virtual sign in, faculty can record which class a student is coming from, which bathroom they are using, and how many minutes their bathroom break is. The goal of this application is to ensure that students are signing out of class to use the bathroom and not roam the halls. The objective of this application is to ensure that if a student has class in the History hallway, their bathroom break should only be taken in the history hallway. As well as this, a student’s bathroom break should be for the primary purpose of using a bathroom.
“We’re trying to have people check into the bathroom so we know who’s in the bathrooms at what time,” said Bernards High School Principal, Dr. Neigel, “One of the things that we’re trying to restrict this year is the amount of wandering we have in the hallways.”
Another reason for using a virtual hall pass is to monitor and discourage the students who choose to vape in the bathrooms. Matched with the vape detectors, Turnstile will help administrators assess which students are misusing their bathroom breaks.
Already, this piloted bathroom policy seems to be deterring students who misuse their bathroom breaks and if this continues to be effective, then it is anticipated that the virtual hall pass will become a regular policy sometime in the next few weeks to a month. However, if the policy results in unintended consequences, then the policy may need to be reassessed. For one, a hope for this change is that it will lessen the time that students take for a bathroom break, however, if it is found that by signing students in via Turnstile takes longer than anticipated, causing students to spend more time out of class, then the application will be reassessed.
