By Molly Albertson and Sophie Dempsey
With the opening of the new Wellness Hub came the conversation of how students could discreetly ask to receive mental health treatment, without needing to say so in front of an entire class. This sprouted the idea of a new way to ask to leave the classroom: Minga. Minga is an online hall pass platform that San Marin has officially adopted as of Oct. 4.
“The students in our Wellness Hub Club were worried about there being a stigma about using the Wellness Hub, so they wanted a private way to ask to leave instead of asking to do so in front of all of their peers,” Principal Jennifer Larson said.
Wellness Hub psychologist Caley Keene wanted to make sure there were no barriers for seeking help.
“This is a place of confidentiality; students have the right to get mental health services in general without having to announce it to their classmates,” Keene said. “There shouldn’t be a barrier to these services.”
Another reason for starting the electronic hall pass system was to help the flow of students going in and out of the classroom.
“I don’t really have many concerns about too many students out of class but more of too many students in one spot,” Vice Principal Shawna Torres said.
Minga works by signing in and submitting a request for the specific reason to leave the classroom on a student or teacher’s computer. It will either give a green pass, which means a student is okay to leave, or a red button, which means don’t go yet.
“If it were to give you a red button, you would need to wait for a minute or two because there might be too many students out at once for that specific pass,” Torres said.
This hall pass system allows teachers to see what pass a student has requested, without them needing to say to teachers out loud where they are going. Not only that, but it creates a uniform way for supervisors to know who is supposed to be out of class, and whether or not they have been out for too long, without needing to confront every student seen walking around campus.
“It makes it easier so I don’t have to always ask [if a student was excused], I can just see that they are on a hall pass. I don’t have to put you or me in a position to create that tension when it doesn’t need to happen,” Torres said.
Torres and Larson hope that the adoption of the new hall pass system will help students, and create consistency for leaving the classroom across the school.
“The whole goal is that we are supporting students and making things easier and more consistent for everybody,” Torres said.
