In American schools, if students move from one classroom to another during the day, which is the norm in middle and high schools (roughly age 11 to completion of school), the whole school does so at the same set times during the day.  Being in the hallways at these times is Passing Classes, which is fine; being in the hallways at any other time is Roaming the Halls.  A student who is Roaming the Halls is presumed to be Up To Something, and may be stopped and interrogated by any member of staff who witnesses said Roaming.

Of course, it does occasionally happen that a student has a legitimate reason to be in the hallways outside of designated passing times.  In those situations, the student carries a pass (”hall pass”) which can be presented to any member of staff who stops and interrogates said student.  Usually, the pass is written on a form that is signed by the teacher who authorized the student’s presence in the halls:  at my school, the form had spaces for student’s name, date, time, where the student is going, and from whence the student is leaving.  

Filling out the entire form every time a student wants to go to the toilet is a pain in the ass, so some teachers use some other form of pass.  In my day, it was either just a regular pass that was pre-filled and laminated, or a block of wood with the classroom number and “Bathroom” written on it.  Apparently nowadays, using some cumbersome and humorous object as the bathroom pass is A Thing.  

This is all regarded as completely normal, so much so that I have explained it in what may be a tedious amount of detail, because I’m unsure what part of it strikes you as unusual.  How is this situation handled where you went to school?

By raising your hand, saying you need to use the bathroom, teacher saying okay and you going. Nothing else.

So if another teacher sees you on your way there, they just…mind their own business?  

That would never work here.  

Would it never work there because of actual logistical issues, or do you mean people would not accept it as a safe solution?

Over here if a teacher sees you (they’re all in class anyway too so it’s unlikely anyone would be in the hallway during class unless they have a reason) they mind their own business, unless you’re dicking around or actually doing something troublesome or loud, or if they know you and know you’re supposed to be somewhere else, and you’re clearly not going to the bathroom. Or if they’re in a shitty mood and wanna yell at you for sitting on the windowsill which was forbidden in my school but nobody cared anyway.

Otherwise, no, no one’s gonna care. Not in high school, anyway- but in lower grades yeah because the kids are younger, but elementary schools will usually have a custodian walking around the halls. They’re still not gonna question kids going to the loo.

Would it never work there because of actual logistical issues, or do you mean people would not accept it as a safe solution?

Short answer is, the second one.  Long answer is, the American school system is permeated with a sense that teenagers are this chaotic force that must be contained at all costs.  (I’m right now having this very clear sense-memory of a hall monitor * saying “You can’t just roam the halls any time you feel like it!”** in the same sort of tone in which one might say, “You can’t just stab people any time you feel like it!”)  It’s not even so much a matter of what you might do while out in the halls unsupervised; the very idea of teenagers Roaming the Halls (of a school, which is full of both teenagers and halls) is understood as being inherently contradictory to the purpose of a school.  It isn’t even that you might go somewhere you’re not supposed to be; it’s that at any given time, there is only one place any given student is supposed to be.  A hall pass creates a temporary change in your prescribed location, without undercutting the fundamental principle that your location should always be prescribed.  

(*My school had professional hall monitors–grown adults who were paid a salary to keep order in the halls.)

(**At one point one teacher issued me a Permanent Hall Pass, for Reasons, essentially licensing me to roam the halls whenever I felt like it.   I forget how long that lasted, but eventually a hall monitor stopped me with it and was, naturally, convinced it was fake.  They hauled me to the office and were like, “We’re going to call down TeacherName and show her this,” and I was like, “Please do.”  So finally they did, and she was like yes, that’s my signature, yes, I wrote that; what are we doing here?”  I ended up getting detention anyway, “because the policy is that if a hall monitor brings you to the office, you get detention.”  The teacher was also instructed to never issue an open-ended hall pass again.)

Today’s question: is the USA actually a giant prison?

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WHAT THE HELL????????? What if you have no class in the middle of the day? We’d just hang out in the halls. Not everybody went to the library or sth. I probably spent a year of my life in the halls. It was actually kind of a way to socialise with people.

Yeah, there’s even a stock phrase as Gaeilige which is about the first thing you learn in school (my dad taught it to me before I started Big School, i.e. age of five) asking for permission to go to the bathroom.

If a teacher sees a kid hanging around the corridors instead of being in class, they may ask them what they’re doing and wait to see if they head off to where they say they’re going (the usual dodge is “Miss/Sir, I have to get my books out of my locker”) but there’s no Hall Pass or any of the rest of this.

Dear America, why is your education system so strange?  

Well for one, there’s never supposed to be a period where kids aren’t in class. There’s no study hall period, no free period, and you’re carefully monitored when you go to and from class as well as to and from lunch period. The idea is that, if kids are free-roaming, they’re going To Do Something like leave school (truancy) or cause some sort of problem. 

But really, its more about training children for future jobs where their employers will treat them exactly the same way. If you are not in class/working, then you are doing something wrong. 

You’ve also got to understand that, in American schools, not only is there a serious lack of trust between teachers and students, but also that the school systems will try to cram AS MUCH CLASSES into one day at a time to “maximize learning.” This includes having extremely short lunch breaks and hall passing times (I swear lunch breaks in my elementary school were like ten minutes long, which contributed to how fast I wolf down my food to this day. I also distinctly remember passing time being only three minutes at my middle school and having a panic attack on the third day of school because i couldn’t get my locker open and I was that afraid of being caught skipping class).
Oh, and by the way, we watched a documentary in high school that took place in a prison once, and I was shocked at how much the prison in question actually DID look like a high school.

schools operate on the premise that All Teenagers Are Inherently Criminals

Added to this, since the late 90s, teachers and administrators also have to know who is out of their classrooms and why and for approximately how long, so they can make an accounting of which kids might be in the path of a random shooter.

Because it’s more important for adults to have the FREEDOM to amass huge arsenals of guns than it is to protect the physical and emotional safety of children.

My daughter has been in school for six years (she’s 10), and she and her classmates have had to practice hiding in the classroom corner in silence with the lights off about twice a year.

American students and teachers now go about their business every day with the background knowledge that at any moment, a kid with his dad’s guns can show up and try to slaughter them all.

Tell me that doesn’t do something to your psyche.

By the time you hit high school you don’t bat an eye at lock down drills or hall monitors. They’re pretty much part of the scenery. According to my friend who was a grade below me, they stopped letting kids have free periods at all after i graduated. Previously, they would lump your classes together and either you could leave early or come to school late, but it was a steady stream of classes.

American schools are also basically wide open to the public if you come in the front door. So hall passes are supposedly for child safety too.