How Many Passes Does Your School Handle Each Day? Here’s How Much Time You Could Save with Orah

Every time a student leaves class, checks in late, or requests a weekend leave, someone on your staff has to approve it, log it, and make sure it doesn’t slip through the cracks. Multiply that across hundreds of students, dozens of passes per day, and multiple staff members involved in each one… and suddenly, you’re spending hours each week managing a process that should take minutes.

At Orah, we work with hundreds of independent schools to streamline these exact workflows using Orah Passes, a powerful tool that automates student movement tracking and saves staff serious time. But just how much time? That’s what we’re here to break down.

Try the calculator: How much time could your school save with Orah Passes?

Use this calculator to estimate how many hours your staff could save every week by managing student passes with Orah.

Phillips Exeter Academy save 39.3 hrs/week using Orah Passes

Phillips Exeter Academy, situated on a sprawling 600-acre campus with over 1,100 students (800 of whom are boarders), faced challenges in managing attendance and tracking student movements. With manual, paper-based processes requiring extensive coordination and staff time, the academy sought a modern solution. Orah emerged as the answer, streamlining attendance management and improving communication between staff, parents and students.

A key component of how Phillips Exeter Academy use Orah is passes. Passes are the core functionality the school uses for keeping track of what students are expected to be (scheduled passes) and where they are (active passes that update a students location). Students can request leave, parents and staff can review and approve. Parents can submit passes via a "magic link" to update the school on absent or late students. Or staff can schedule passes or passes can be issued when a student has checked-in to a location, such as the health center, so key staff always know where students are.

Coming up to weekend periods, Student Systems Analyst Rochelle Karakey shared:

“On Fridays, with students preparing to go off campus, we processed thousands of passes. Since September [one month prior], we’ve handled over 5,000 passes.”

Using Orah Passes, Phillips Exeter Academy saves 39.3 hrs/week on average. And that's just staff time.

What are “Passes” and why do they eat up so much time?

Passes are one of the tools schools use to keep track of whether a student is (or is not) where they’re expected to be.

For simplicity's sake, we've only included the pass types we see most often, they are the pass types included as templates for every new Orah school (schools can create their own custom pass types in Orah to suit their needs).

Common pass types include:

Day School Passes:

• Full Day Absences
• Late Arrivals
• Early Dismissals
• Multi-Day Absences
• Class Period Absences (e.g. nurse, music lesson, library)

Boarding School Passes:

• Weekend Leave
• After School Sign-Outs

Every one of these requires staff time to approve, track, and reconcile. In a manual system, that might involve paper slips, emails, phone calls, spreadsheets, or hand-logging entries into your SIS.

It’s slow. It’s error-prone. And it adds up.

Pass Time Benchmarks (Based on real school workflows)

After helping independent schools manage student locations and passes for over 10 years, we've been able to collect some rich data around what processes consume a lot of staff time that we can help alleviate.

Here’s what we found when we broke it down:

Not all passes are created equal. Some are quick. Others (like boarding weekend leave or early dismissals) take multiple steps and multiple people to resolve.

When you average everything out:

Average Staff Time per Pass

When you average out these values, accounting for boarding-specific pass types that typically take a bit longer to process, we get these averages:

Day Schools

4.18 min per pass before Orah → 1.23 min per pass with Orah

Time Savings Example (500 students):

Passes/day: 500 × 10% = 50
‍Time saved per pass: 2.95 min

• Per Day: 50 × 2.95 = 147.5 minutes → ~2.46 hours/day
• Per Week: 2.46 × 5 = 12.3 hours
• Per Month: 12.3 × 4 = 49.2 hours
• Per Year: 12.3 × 40 = 492 hours

Boarding Schools

5.93 min per pass before Orah → 1.68 min per pass with Orah

Time Savings Example (500 students):

Passes/day: 500 × 10% = 50
Time saved per pass: 4.25 min

• Per Day: 50 × 4.25 = 212.5 minutes → ~3.54 hours/day
• Per Week: 3.54 × 5 = 17.7 hours
• Per Month: 17.7 × 4 = 70.8 hours
• Per Year: 17.7 × 40 = 708 hours

Note: This does not factor in how much easier it is for parents to use Orah to report absences, for students to request passes etc. which also results in significant time savings.

What does the process look like for most schools?

Here’s how Orah transforms manual pass workflows across each pass type. First, I'm going to outline the manual steps before Orah, then map out the streamlined process with Orah, and detail how we estimate the time saved per pass.

Day‑School Pass Types

Full Day Absence

Before Orah:

1. Parent emails or calls Office before 8:30am.
2. Staff log absence in SIS or spreadsheet (record reason and date).
3. Office staff notify teachers/admin manually.
4. Follow-up if no notification or late call.
   ≈ 5–7 min per absence

With Orah:

1. Parent clicks magic link or app to report absence.
2. Orah logs automatically in attendance module.
3. Notifications go to staff and teachers.
4. Monitoring and documentation is automatic.
   ≈ 1–2 min per absence
   Time saved: ~4–6 min per absence

Late Arrival

Before Orah:

1. Student arrives, signs in at office.
2. Staff verify reason, issue tardy slip.
3. Staff update attendance system.
   ≈ 3–4 min

With Orah:

1. Parent reports or student logs late via Orah.
2. Orah updates attendance automatically and issues pass.
   ≈ 30 sec – 1 min
   Time saved: ~2–3 min

Early Dismissal

Before Orah:

1. Parent emails or calls Office ahead of time.
2. Staff confirm details.
3. Slip is printed or written.
4. Staff notify teachers.
5. Staff log the dismissal.
   ≈ 5–10 min

With Orah:

1. Parent or student requests via Orah.
2. Staff approve in-app.
3. Notifications sent automatically.
4. Attendance updated.
   ≈ 1–2 min
   Time saved: ~4–8 min

Multi‑Day Absence

Before Orah:

1. Parent sends detailed request email.
2. Multiple staff (Registrar, Dean, teachers) review.
3. Manual approval chain via email.
4. Multiple attendance updates in SIS.
   ≈ 10–15 min

With Orah:

1. Parent submits multi‑day request in Orah.
2. Teachers, advisors, admins endorse in-app.
3. Attendance records auto‑update.
4. Communication thread stays attached.
   ≈ 3–5 min
   Time saved: ~7–12 min

Absent From Class (e.g. health, specialist)

Before Orah:

1. Teacher writes hall or nurse pass.
2. Office logs visit or nurse records.
3. Attendance system entry if needed.
   ≈ 2–3 min

With Orah:

1. Pass is activated via Orah Homeboard or mobile.
2. Sign-out and sign-in tracked digitally.
3. Office can monitor in real time.
   ≈ 30 sec – 1 min
   Time saved: ~1.5–2 min

Boarding‑School Pass Types

Weekend Leave

Before Orah:

1. Student submits paper form or email.
2. Supervisor reviews, then sends email to parents/community.
3. Parent writes back/phones approval.
4. Supervisor checks host details, transport, times.
5. Staff manually track sign-out/in and record passes.
6. Paper sheets reconciled post‑weekend.
   ≈ 15–20 min per request (higher admin involvement) ‍

With Orah:

1. Student submits leave request via Orah form.
2. Supervisor reviews in-app, endorses.
3. Parent and host (if applicable) approve via app/email.
4. Orah logs departure and return times.
5. Check-in/out via kiosks if configured.
6. All documentation stored centrally.
   ≈ 3–5 min
   Time saved: ~12–17 min

After School (e.g. late activities or sports sign‑out)

Before Orah:

1. Student signs out manually or writes note.
2. Staff record in spreadsheets or sign‑out sheets.
3. Staff later update attendance systems.
4. Follow‑ups if student doesn’t return.
   ≈ 5–7 min

With Orah:

1. Staff select student from Homeboard and activate pass.
2. Orah logs location, time out.
3. End pass digitally when student returns.
4. Dashboard gives real‑time visibility.
   ≈ 1–2 min
   Time saved: ~4–5 min

So how much time is your school spending?

Let’s say your school has 500 students. A common benchmark we use across independent schools is that 10% of students need a pass on any given day. That’s 50 passes per day.

For a day school with 500 students:

• Manual System: 50 × 4.18 min = 3.5+ hours per day
• With Orah: 50 × 1.23 min = just over 1 hour per day
• Time Saved Per Week: ~11.5 hours

✅ Orah is ~3.4× faster for day schools

For a boarding school with 500 students:

• Manual System: 50 × 5.93 min = 5 hours per day
• With Orah: 50 × 1.68 min = ~1.4 hours per day
• Time Saved Per Week: ~18+ hours

✅ Orah is ~3.5× faster for boarding schools

That’s one to two full workdays of staff time every week, reclaimed.

And that’s just the staff time

Manual pass processes don’t just waste time — they lead to missed communications, frustrated parents, lost learning time, and students falling through the cracks.

Orah Passes eliminates:

• Phone calls and emails for every minor request
• Paper logs and inconsistent teacher processes
• Uncertainty around who’s on campus or off
• Time lost to hallway interruptions and admin back-and-forth

Instead, approvals happen in seconds. Attendance records update in real-time. Parents and staff get automatic notifications. And you get full visibility over every student, every pass, every time.

Book a meeting with our team

If your team is spending hours every week managing student passes manually, it's time for a better way.

Book a meeting with the Orah team to learn how Orah Passes can streamline your student leave and absence workflows — and give your staff time back where it matters most.

Schedule a demo now