How Principals Can Stop Hallway Roaming
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why getting students out of the hallways and back to class is one of the fastest ways to improve learning and safety.
Key Takeaways
- Hallway sweeps matter - When administrators, substitutes, and available staff actively clear the halls, more students get back to class and learning improves immediately.
- Accurate attendance is essential - Taking attendance every period helps schools catch class skipping that can otherwise go unnoticed in the middle of the day.
- Roaming students create safety risks - If students are not where they are supposed to be during emergencies, sign-outs, or drills, the school loses track of them and assumes the risk.
- Behavior must be addressed in class too - Getting students into class is only step one; if they disrupt learning once they arrive, they need to be removed so others can learn.
- Control builds legitimacy - When adults allow hallway chaos, it signals that the school is not fully in charge, which undermines staff confidence and school culture.
Full Transcript
Get kids out of the hallway. This is such low-hanging fruit for any school that has a problem with kids roaming the halls. If administrators, if subs, if any available staff members can sweep the halls, get kids out of the hallways, get them back to class, make sure that everybody's where they're supposed to be, that is a huge win for learning.
And if that puts kids in a position where they are then acting up in class, getting them out of class, dealing with the behavior is going to increase the learning. So we have too many kids who are in class and not learning because they're not behaving,
and we have too many kids who are in the hallway and not learning because they're not in class. If we can solve both of those problems, which are very solvable, We will see an increase in learning.
And again, this doesn't apply to a lot of schools, but if you work in a school where there's a problem with kids roaming the halls, you know exactly what I'm talking about. When I looked into this as a middle school teacher, I was shocked at attendance.
I had the attendance secretary, uh, for a project I was working on run attendance by a period, and in the middle of the day, you would be shocked at how many absences pop up. A kid who's been here, present, absent, present, absent. They're missing random classes in the middle of the day,
and not just occasionally, not just because the teacher made a mistake taking attendance, but because they're skipping. And every kid who is skipping class is not only not learning, but they're doing something else, right?
When a kid is not in class, they're getting into some sort of trouble, most likely. Now, the best case scenario is they're just hiding out in some teacher's room who, you know, they kind of like, and then maybe they're doing some work. But this is not okay, right?
Like, it is a huge safety problem to not have kids where they're supposed to be. So we gotta have accurate attendance every period, we've gotta sweep the halls, we've gotta make sure that we know where every kid is, because if we have an emergency, if that kid gets signed out, if we have a fire drill, anything that happens, if that kid is not where they're supposed to be, guess who's in charge of that?
We are in charge of that.
And sometimes a kid who's skipping class is not the biggest priority. Sometimes kids who are, like, actively misbehaving are the biggest priority. So I understand this is not always the, uh, the number one most urgent thing. But as school administrators, we have got to take care of this because it affects everybody. Teachers know when there are kids roaming the halls. Other students know when there are kids roaming the halls and banging on doors and running away.
We have got to get this under control, and it is a legitimacy issue, right? When we as adults are in charge of running the school and not in control of an issue like this, it makes us look bad. It calls our legitimacy into question.
as people who are, you know, entrusted with the authority to run a school. So if your school is a little bit chaotic now, if it feels like the adults are not really in charge, this is a good thing to focus on. Focus on getting the hallways clear, getting everybody to class, checking attendance every period, making sure that any discrepancies are dealt with,
and if kids do get to class, and then they act up, they need to be out of class so that everybody can learn.
You gotta be in class to learn, and you gotta be learning when you're in class. I think it's as simple as that. Let me know what you think.