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Starting in July, individual schools in Frederick County Public Schools can choose to implement a digital hall pass system for $3.15 per student.
The Frederick County Board of Education voted 3-2 on Wednesday to award Houston-based Raptor Technologies a contract to allow individual schools to purchase the electronic system.
Board President Rae Gallagher and members Karen Yoho and Janie Inglis Monier voted to approve the contract.
Board Vice President Dean Rose and member Jaime Brennan opposed the contract’s approval.
Board members Nancy Allen and Colt Black were absent for the vote.
The hall pass system, which Raptor Technologies named SmartPass, would not be a districtwide purchase. The system would be paid for using individual schools’ budgets.
With SmartPass, students can request a hall pass from their teachers, who then input the time and place of the request into the digital database. Staff members are also able to send students digital passes.
When students are stopped in the hallway, staff members can look up in the digital system whether the student has permission to be in the halls during class time.
The contract runs from July 2025 through June 2028, and the cost is annual. There is one additional two-year term available.
Four schools in the district have been piloting the system: Tuscarora High, Frederick High, Monocacy Middle and Waverley Elementary.
The pilot was also paid for through school-based budgets.
SmartPass can support a digital hall pass system for up to 63 schools in the district.
FCPS has 70 schools and programs in total, which includes the SUCCESS Program for special education students, the Remote Virtual Program and the Career and Technology Center.
Afie Mirshah-Nayar, the director of school administration and instructional leadership in FCPS, said at Wednesday’s school board meeting that the system also provides the number of times a particular student has been in the halls.
She added that Individualized Education Plan (IEP) teams are using the database at the pilot schools to see when students have been out of class.
Jamie Aliveto, the chief of schools and accountability for FCPS, said at the school board meeting that administrators through the system can see which students are out of class at any given time of the day.
She added that the system also allows restrictions on when students may leave class, such as if there is a concern between two students and they should not be out of class at the same time.
The school could set up the system to block one student from getting a pass if another particular student is out of class.
Bill Meekins, purchasing manager for FCPS, said Raptor Technologies also owns the software the school district uses for signing visitors in once they arrive at a school.
Aliveto said FCPS has considered purchasing the system districtwide, “but we don’t have that planned in the budget at this time.”
