QR Codes and You

Introduced in a Seminar on January 5th, teachers announced to kids across the school that there could no longer be walk-in appointments with your counselors. Students need to fill out a google request form to see the counselors and nurse. After it’s filled out, your teacher will receive a call telling you to come down to the student services office. However, kids receiving daily medication and medical emergencies will be exceptions to this. They also changed the process for schedule requests, which is another google form students can fill out.

But how does this system work?

When someone fills out a request form, it’s filtered into a google sheet that logs them. Each counselor has their own tab of the sheet, allowing them to manage their upcoming day effectively. This also allows them to move more important requests up their schedule.

These changes were not well received by a student body who felt like the new rule was an unnecessary inconvenience within their busy school days. It didn’t help that this change also came right before the new semester. With almost every kid wanting a schedule change, the process was complained about by many. Despite this, the change was kept because counselors and the nurse feel like it gives them an opportunity to do their job better.

Efficiency is the Goal

In the view of the administration, this shift is going to be a great change to the student services' office. In their words, “this will help us to be more efficient and ensure we are able to meet students’ needs with regard to the urgency of the situation.” This change aims to give students in the offices a safer and more comfortable environment—what most would consider a step in the right direction for students' privacy. But to find what most students think, fellow Lance writer Bevan Henderson and I, Jacob Ohsann, hit the hallways to interview students.

Some students have differing opinions on the QR Code policy. We interviewed a small number of students from different grade levels and found out some interesting things. Some students were in support of it while others were strongly against it. The students who were for it believed it was beneficial and more organized for the office. The students who opposed it thought that it was an unnecessary obstacle students had to overcome if they needed real help. We have gathered different thoughts and opinions to showcase what people all over the school think about this new policy.

Supporters and Dissenters

One student that we interviewed who supported the code was senior Travis Miller. When asked if he agreed or disagreed he said, “I agree, I think it’s a great idea.” Adding on to that, he explained, “it just kind of makes the school more connected.” He and other students see the QR Code as a way to connect people in a less chaotic way. The nurse’s office used to be very cluttered at times because students would just walk in, but now Emily Dimmer, our school nurse, stated it’s much better. When we interviewed her about the effectiveness of the QR Code Dimmer said, “[the QR Code is] more effective because you’re able to triage the patients, or students, based on urgency.” This is super helpful to manage the capacity of the nurse’s office. The Dimmer added, “we can kind of control the flow of the nursing office so each student can get their own individualized private time.”

Although the nurse and some students make a good point about the effectiveness and organization of the QR Code policy, others still disagree. Students, such as sophomore Makaylea Yackle, think the QR Code is in the way of students who need immediate help or have urgent issues. When asked what she thought about the policy she responded with, “I think it makes it more effective but also I feel like they still should let it open for the kids.” What she means by “the kids” are students such as herself who utilize the office and student services office as a safe space. Makaylea stated, “it’s a place for kids to go when we need to get away from school… it’s my safe place.” Sometimes school and class can be a tough place in which we need a small mental health break from, and many students use the student services office as such.

Open to Change

We also spoke to the counselors in the student services office to hear what they think about the QR Code policy. We asked Ms. Peekenschneider if she agreed with the rule or not and she said, “I agree because we wanted to improve things in the office but I know that some students are struggling with it so we want to hear their opinions and make some adjustments too.” She made it clear that as much as she likes the QR Code, they are open to change and feedback from the students. Another thing she added is, “this is nice just that the requests are all in one place so that we can address them in the correct order. I think that's the biggest thing, it has helped me become more efficient and get to students quicker because I don’t have students walking in and interrupting me all the time which has been a huge help.” As we know, many students abused student services before, so this QR Code policy helps eliminate time-wasting and traffic for the counselors.

With both opinions having sound reasoning as to why people support them, we will let you decide in our QR Code Questionnaire sent to your email. What do you think about the QR Code policy? Do you think it’s worth the difficulty to make the nurse’s and counselor’s jobs easier? Or do you think it’s worth it for their job to be chaotic sometimes so that the students have easier access? Whatever you think, these QR Codes are made to be helpful so let’s respect that and use them accordingly!