The week of February 2nd to 8th, the 5-star iPad system will be in place at Arroyo Grande High School. The iPad system is a district-wide initiative; there is one iPad in every class on campus that students will use to sign out when leaving class to go to the restroom. The purpose of these iPads is to track bathroom usage during instructional time, monitor how many students are out of class at a time, and how long they are away from class.

Principal Brad Grumbles is hopeful that the new system put into place can help make students feel more secure and safe on campus.

“The goal is not to prevent students from going to the bathroom when they need to; the goal is to make the bathrooms safe,” Grumbles said.

This new system allows students to use the bathroom during instructional time twice a day, 90 minutes apart from each other. Only 20 students are allowed to be out of class at once, so if students need to go to the bathroom and there are already 20 students, they have to wait until someone returns to class.

Because of these rules, there are concerns as to how students will react,
“I’m most concerned about how students will accept the system, if they will try to find ways around it, or try to abuse it,” Math teacher Aaron Sue said.

With this new system, all staff have access to see who’s out of class at once through the 5-star app. The app shows the names of students out of class and their pictures, so it’s easier to identify.

“If you don’t have a pass and you’re not in the system, we’re walking you back to class,” Campus security Martin Cano said.

Grumbles believes that every new system has hiccups and just needs to be adjusted and worked out over time once we can collect more data, but he is excited to see the new system finally come into effect.