Students outside school during their lunch break.

Leaving school to go to Dunkin’ for lunch is no foreign concept to most Stamford High School students. Despite being reminded of the closed campus policy at the beginning of each school year, it’s become abnormal not to go off campus, whether it be to John’s Pizza, Dunkin’ Donuts, or the convenience store.

For most of Stamford High’s 150 years, an open campus has been something unfamiliar to students. Now, after so long, Stamford Public Schools has passed an open campus policy for all of the high schools in the district.

The open campus policy at Stamford High School does not differ from those at Westhill and AITE. “Open campus is for juniors and seniors only who either have a study hall or could use open campus for a lunch period on their schedule,” said Principal Matt Forker. He made sure to differentiate this new policy from late arrival and early dismissal, as those are blocks on your schedule, and open campus is something that any upperclassman, regardless of schedule, can take advantage of.

This policy is something that’s been in the works for a while now, as it’s so commonplace for students to leave campus. The district decided to finally implement this policy as a way to provide structure and safety to students who leave during school hours. “If your parent calls up and asks, ‘Hey, where’s [my kid]?’ and I can’t respond or have an answer, that’s a problem for me. So, my job as the head of school is to be responsible for all the kids that go here, every second of every day.”

 An open campus policy not only allows for the reassurance of parents, but also for more freedom for students. In order to be able to make use of this new policy, parents of students must fill out a form on the Parent Portal, similar to the Acceptable Use Policy. For students themselves, a form can be found in the Forms section of PowerSchool. Once both forms have been filled out and submitted, an icon will appear on a student’s Minga app that indicates form completion.

When it comes time to actually leave campus, upperclassmen must use their Minga app to scan the QR codes at the exits of the school labeled “Checking Out,” and when they return to school, they must scan another QR code located at the front of the school labeled “Checking In.” At the main entrance, a security guard placed at the desk will check students’ Mingas to see if they are 1) an upperclassman and 2) efficiently checked back in.

These Minga passes are not timed like the bathroom or water fountain passes are. Forker said that it is up to students to manage their own time and make sure they’re back before their next class. “Kids have to be very mindful of [their time] because, if you’re going to take on responsibility, there are parameters that you have to follow. Nobody says you have to go out; you can certainly choose to bring your own lunch, or to buy- the food’s free here, so no one’s saying you have to do these things.”

The implementation of this policy begs the question of how freshmen and sophomore students will be discouraged or prevented from leaving the school. Forker said “it’s more of an honor code” in regards to lowerclassmen going off campus. “Freshmen and sophomores have full schedules, so they don’t have- they shouldn’t have study halls in their schedule, they should be taking their full complement of courses.”

The Stamford High School open campus policy does not include hanging out at Boyle stadium among its included permissions. “Loitering is not part of this.  If you’re not going to leave campus, then you need to go to your study hall, or to lunch,” said Forker. The new policy aims to solve the problems of student supervision, which would not include places on campus.

As the open campus policy officially launches, emails will be sent out to the parents of upperclassmen, as well as copies of said emails to students. Forker would like to remind everyone that “it’s going to be a work in progress, for sure,” and that changes will most likely be made along the way as we learn more about the function of the open campus policy.