How Sunnyside Saved Time & Costs by Modernizing Hallway Management and Off-Campus Lunch
Learn how Sunnyside High ditched paper processes and adopted Minga’s digital IDs and digital hall passes to ease admin tasks that once were sources of frustration.
About Sunnyside High School
Students
2100+
Grades
9-12
The Challenge
A Quest for Better Hallway Monitoring and Off-Campus Lunch Processes
Sunnyside High School was bogged down by old-school, paper-based processes. Monitoring the movement of students across their sprawling campus was problematic, largely due to a lack of reliable student IDs or clear hall pass procedures. Some teachers were using scraps of paper, some would use torn-out pages from student handbooks, and some were reluctant to allow kids to leave the class at all. The school was eager to refine its system to keep a better eye on hallway traffic.
In addition, Sunnyside’s processes for managing their off-campus lunch, called “Grizzly Success”, was an administrative headache. The procedure was all manual, with staff members having to scan through page after page of student names each day, eating up valuable hours over the week. Admins also had to spend a lot of time verifying if names were correct, and changing paper colors every week to prevent fraud, exacerbating the issue of wasted resources.
KEY PROBLEM AREAS:
“
We have 300-400 kids that qualify for off-campus lunch in the eleventh and the twelfth grade. Trying to manage that by paper was just ridiculous. We could never get them out on time. We did it for so long, and I don’t know how we did it.”
The Solution
Investing in Efficiency: Software That Saves Time and Money
In the search for an effective software solution, Assistant Principal Wallace Shearer spoke to neighboring schools and learned that they were using Minga to solve the same issues that he was facing at Sunnyside. Happy with what Minga had to offer, he decided to redirect funds that were previously allocated to paper resources and student handbooks to replace their outdated processes. Sunnyside’s investment in Minga has already paid dividends — saving time, reducing stress for staff, and cutting down the cost of using paper, copiers, and paper cutters on campus.
Managing campus movement at Sunnyside is now far more convenient. When students are inside the classroom, they use their Chromebooks to create a variety of hall passes such as restroom and health passes. When students are oustide the classroom, they use their cell phones to check out for lunch. The whole process of managing “Grizzly Success”, the school’s off-campus lunch program, is also far more efficient now. Instead of printing pages of student names for teachers to check who is able to leave, Sunnyside now uploads a Google Sheet into Minga, which automatically assigns an ID sticker and hall pass to eligible students. It has saved the school over 10 hours of painful admin time each week and reduced the task to just 5 minutes!
What Minga Offered:
“
There were a lot of moving parts to keep track of. I had 2 employees who were spending up to 5 hours of work a week on putting out a list [for off-campus lunch] that I now spend 5 min on. They don’t even touch the list anymore.”
The Outcomes
Giving Time Back to Admins and Teachers to Focus on Education
Clear Oversight of Campus Movement
The digital hall pass system has substantially improved oversight at Sunnyside’s multi-building campus by offering real-time data on student movements. This marks a significant improvement from the previous approach — which relied solely on perceptual and anecdotal observations.
Analyzing Hall Pass Data Sheds Light on Student Performance
Sunnyside’s admin team checks hall pass usage to try and connect any dots with academic performance. For example, are frequent flyers also the same students who are having trouble with their grades? And if so, teachers can proactively intervene to get kids back on track and open up conversations to see if there are other underlying issues.
A Far More Efficient Way to Manage Off-Campus Lunch
Minga’s Digital ID Manager and innovative digital stickers have saved significant administrative time, allowing the school’s attendance specialists to redirect their focus from paperwork to locating students who are absent from their classrooms.
Consistent Hall Pass Processes Amongst Teachers
The old-school mentality of not allowing students to go to the bathroom during class may have worked in the past, but is no longer practical. Staff now have clear procedures, promoting fairness and continuity.
Increased Student & Teacher Accountability
The digital hall pass system has significantly elevated accountability for both students and teachers alike. By streamlining and expediting the process of requesting and receiving passes, it not only simplifies the administrative aspects but also encourages responsible student behavior.
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