Perhaps you have said hi, waved to or checked in with Cinnaminson High School’s new hall monitor, Ms. Geri Ferroni, who monitors the hallway and upstairs bathrooms in B Hall.
According to Ferroni, the purpose of having a hall monitor is to create less chaos near the bathrooms and ensure that students are not roaming around the halls when they should be in class. Among her list of duties, Ferroni said she keeps a record of students’ restroom times.
“I monitor who is coming in and out of the bathrooms. I take their student ID and name and the time they enter and the time they leave,” Ferroni said.
Assistant Principal Dr. Kaitlin McCann said the decision to have a hall monitor upstairs is because those are the two student bathrooms open all day.
“I think the other thing we’ve asked is to just make sure that what they see around them is appropriate for school to let us know if anybody’s doing things that aren’t appropriate,” McCann said. “Also to keep track of how many students are in the bathroom.”
One problem Ferroni said she has noticed is that the same students are repeatedly using the bathrooms. She also said students are staying in bathrooms for an unnecessary period of time. She stated that she hopes that it gets limited throughout the school year.
“I also think hallways and bathrooms are places where students sometimes congregate,” McCann said. “We want to make sure that we’re making an environment where everybody feels comfortable.”
Another tool used to eliminate the problem of students wandering the halls is Genesis. The website that keeps track of students’ grades and assignments can now also be used to sign in and out of bathrooms. Teachers are notified when a student signs into a location using their student ID or first and last name. Outside of the bathrooms, students can sign in with Ferroni on the iPad.
“Genesis helps all teachers to keep track that their student is not just wandering around the halls during their class,” McCann said. “It tells you where they went, the amount of time spent at that location, and how often you go to that location.”
With the increased use of technology, McCann said the school would like to ultimately add electronic bathroom passes instead of signing out in student agenda books.
In the near future, according to McCann, schools in the district are hoping to add more safety measures. For example, detectors for vapes and other prohibited items students should not have in school. McCann said implementing these safety measures are to prevent students from bringing something that could be a weapon and harming other students.
