Some are fluffy animals, some are World War II helmets and some are hastily ripped pieces of paper from your notebook. They’re hall passes, and they don’t make any sense.

Half of you are probably asking yourself right now, “Whitman has hall passes?” which is exactly the point. They have no regulation or consistency, which makes them a useless, outdated and defunct system.

According to the Walt Whitman Student Handbook, “students in the halls when classes are in session must have hall passes.”

Well if that’s so, then countless Whitman students and staff members should be in big trouble. Many teachers use unrecognizable objects, such as a massive hand sanitizer bottle or a wooden apple, as a sign of their permission for students to be in the hallways.

In fact, most don’t use any pass at all, instead just giving their students verbal consent. Others even allow students to simply leave without asking.

In addition to teachers, security guards are apparently unsure of the policy as well. Most don’t check for hall passes, but there’s the rare occasion when a guard may spring the trap on an unsuspecting student, leading to a frustrating and shameful walk back to the classroom for a hall pass.

The only conceivable reason to require the passes is to keep students from wandering the halls during class. But how does this make sense? Students can just as easily wander the halls with a chain of carabiners in hand.

I offer an easier system, one which many teachers already use. We should get rid of hall passes altogether. A student should ask permission to leave the classroom, and a simple go-ahead from the teacher should be all that’s needed. This arrangement relies more on the honor system, but if students can’t be trusted to behave in the hallways, then what can they be trusted for?

Because in the end, the school should relax about hall passes. Hallways aren’t highly militarized zones patrolled by a gang of guards. They’re merely a place to connect classrooms, get you where you need to go, and say a few words to a passing acquaintance. Let us be.