The current — some say archaic — sign-out system is soon to become obsolete, with an electronic system being adopted by the school to replace it. While Choate’s administration has long toyed with this notion, it is set to become a reality for the 2017-18 academic year. This effort has been spearheaded by Mr. Will Morris, the Dean of Residential Life.
The new system, REACH, will facilitate both off-campus and daily sign-outs for dorms. REACH is a residential campus software designed by boarding schools to help monitor student sign-outs. Clients of REACH include The Hotchkiss School, Miss Porter’s School, and St. George’s School. An annual subscription to the system will cost $9,000 a year, according to Director of ITS Mr. Andrew Speyer.
For weekend sign-outs, students will no longer need to shuffle a piece of paper around to their advisers and deans. Students will simply submit a sign-out request via an electronic device, and their school will process the request. The system will accommodate recurring dorm sign-outs. For example, if a student goes home every Friday after classes and returns every Sunday, the system will not require students to create a new sign-out every week. Mr. Morris said, “It will not run the weekend sign-out and dorm logs as separate systems; it brings them together.” The ‘prep-slip’ process students currently complete to obtain excused absences from class will continue to happen on paper. While it is possible to integrate this in the system, it would be very complex.
Andrea Qi ’17 believes that students will be more easily able to sign out: “Slips are easy to lose, and I am so glad that we are changing it to an electronic system.”
Kathy Lee ’19 believes that the new system will be more convenient: “I think this new electronic system it will be beneficial towards the school. It will be more convenient for the students and the faculties.”
However, some students are not looking forward to the implementation. Inc Thongthai ’19 said, “I prefer the old system because back then I could physically see the table. I could remember it more, rather than have a virtual online one where I can’t see.”
The electronic system will allow administrators to collect information and use it to make long-term plans for the school. Mr. Morris explained, “With our current system we could have over 30 students from different dorms signing out to use the Lanphier Center, but we don’t have a central way of knowing the total number of Lanphier Center sign-outs we have.”
Mr. Morris and the Director of ITS Mr. Andrew Speyer have collaborated to consider the feasibility of this project. Additionally, both have worked with other schools in the Eight Schools Association. “We are one of the biggest boarding schools to attempt to put a system like this in place. Because we have so many dormitories and students, our system is more complex and requires more customization than those of smaller boarding schools.” said Mr. Morris.
He continued, “That is something to be careful about as we build the system to meet Choate’s needs. We are not allowing a software to change what we have developed as best practices. This is not going to materially change the students’ experiences about who they need to get permission from and in what order; the only change is in the medium.”
Mr. Morris added, “We have been working very closely with REACH as their engineers have been developing a more robust and sophisticated product.”
However, the administration still deems the conversation between a student and dean or dean’s assistant crucial to the sign out system. Mr. Morris said, “Submitting a clearance slip is something you do with integrity and with your honor; none of that changes with this electronic system. The face-to-face conversation with the dean’s assistant is something we are going to preserve as one of our best practices.” The in-person aspect of the system is meant to increase efficiency for deans’ assistants, who often find that there are problems with a students’ sign out requests that can be remedied more quickly in person.
This system will not be, as some students have feared, a GPS or other location-based application, through which the school will instantly know where a student is because he or she is carrying a smartphone with the app. Students will still have to intentionally sign-out through the website or through the mobile application for the school to know where they are, similar to the way that students currently have to go to their dorm spreadsheet or paper log to specify their location.
The administration remains optimistic for how the school will adjust to this new sign-out system. Mrs. Laura Lynn van Mierlo, fourth form dean, said, “My anticipation is that there will be a learning curve. The faculty and students will learn the system, and it will seem as if we have always done things that way.”
Mr. Morris expressed the same sentiment: “I am optimistic that we will make some progress. We don’t have a strict deadline, but we have a strong interest in moving this out as expediently as we can without compromising our responsibilities in keeping track of our students.”
