MCHS announced Minga as the new pass system for the 25-26 school year.
MCHS has used the previous pass system, MyHomework, for the last few years while Minga was used primarily for Digital IDs. This year, however, MCHS expanded Minga’s use to handle hall passes which includes benefits such as a decrease in time spent in the hallway by 52%.
The goal of Minga at MCHS is to have students focus in class and not spend so much time in the hallways.
Gregory Eiserman, Principal at MCHS, wanted to make sure a new pass system would not only be more user-friendly but improve in aspects that have lacked in previous years.
“Minga is more user-friendly than previous pass systems,” says Eiserman. “There’s a lot of potential for connection between passes and student IDs due to the scanning features, this helps with reporting on where students are, which is an area where myHomework was weak.”
While using MyHomework, bathroom passes and meetups became an issue. According to the Minga website, a solution includes denying passes made if there are too many people out in the hallway. They also keep tabs on students who make passes consecutively for the same times each day.
AIM has also turned out to be tricky under MyHomework as students could only make passes to their specific teachers.
This caused headaches in students’ attendance, making the AIM movement an issue for many.
Kristian Hokinson, Math Instructor here at MCHS, thinks Minga has made it easier for teachers and students to travel during AIM.
“During AIM, it is super easy as the kids come in, open up the app, they scan a little QR code, and that’s it,” says Hokinson. “Minga makes it so I don’t have to sit and worry about checking kids in, MyHomework was just tedious.”
With Minga, students can now designate passes to be approved by any teacher, including substitutes. According to Derek Franzen, Upper Campus building substitute, this ability is more convenient.
“I enjoy the ability for students to write their own passes and designate myself or another sub as the approving teacher,” says Franzen.
Even though Minga is doing well so far, there have been inevitable hiccups that have got in the way.
Over the past few weeks, due to minimal training, Minga has caused some confusion among students and staff. However, most of our sources report that Minga has been an improvement so far.
This year, Eiserman will prioritize student education and Minga will allow MCHS to do just that.
“We want kids in school to learn,” says Eiserman. “We don’t want students missing instruction from their teachers because they spent time outside of the classroom, we do not want students to struggle academically.”