Exits and entries 3 min read Updated October 2026
Weekends and holidays: who leaves, who stays, and how everyone returns
Thursday at noon, dozens of students leave for home at once and the gate is full of parents and shuttles. On Sunday everyone has to come back, and anyone who hasn’t must be noticed fast. A good weekend is planned from Monday, not from Thursday morning.
1. A timetable for an exit week
Thursday’s chaos starts with decisions that weren’t made early. With a fixed timetable, everyone knows the deadline to request, approve and close the lists.
| When | What happens |
|---|
| Sunday–Monday | Open requests to parents: who leaves, when, with whom and how they travel. |
| Tuesday evening | Close requests. Anyone who didn’t ask counts as staying until the parents say otherwise. |
| Wednesday | Counselors approve, and prepare a leaving list and a staying list for every group. |
| Thursday | Departures by time slot and by group, with a list at the gate. |
| Sunday | Return by a fixed time, and a count against the leaving list. |
2. What every approval needs
In a mass exit, a missing approval turns into a queue at the gate and stressful phone calls. Every exit needs the same details, in the same place.
A weekend exit approval
- Departure date and time, and return date and time.
- Who picks up or escorts the student, and their phone number. If the student travels alone, how.
- The parent’s approval, and the counselor’s.
- Where the student is going, if it isn’t their usual home.
3. Departure day: an orderly gate
The gate is the bottleneck. When the guard has to call a counselor about every student, a queue forms. When the guard has a ready list with the escort for each student, departures flow.
- Departures in waves by group or by time, not everyone at once.
- The gate has an up-to-date list: who may leave, with whom and when.
- A student without an approval doesn’t leave, even if the parent is already at the gate. The counselor sorts it out, not the guard.
- Every exit is recorded at its time, so it’s always clear who is still inside.
4. The stay-behind group
Weekend stayers aren’t “whoever is left”. They’re a temporary group with a responsible counselor, a plan and their own attendance report. When you treat them as a group, it’s easier to know who is inside at any moment.
Before the campus empties
- A closed list of stayers, with a temporary group and a responsible counselor.
- A weekend plan: meals, activities, count times.
- Which stayers need medication or follow-up, and who on the staff knows.
- The phone number of an on-call person in charge, available all weekend.
5. Return day: count against the list
On Sunday the question isn’t who came back, but who hasn’t yet. Count against the leaving list, not from memory, at a time set in advance.
01One clear return timeAll parents know it in advance. A late return is agreed with the counselor before the weekend, not after the fact.
02Recording at the gateEvery returning student is recorded at entry, so the list updates in real time.
03A count at the set timeThe counselor checks who is still marked as out, against the leaving list.
04Anyone who hasn’t returnedStart the late-return procedure: contact the student and the parent, and update the person in charge as the procedure says.
Common mistakes
- Exit requests that arrive on Thursday morning.
- A gate list that doesn’t say who is picking up each student.
- Stayers with no responsible counselor and no plan.
- A count on Sunday night instead of at the return time.
- A late return agreed by phone with one counselor, and nobody else knows.
Want to see how parents approve an exit from their phone, the gate knows who leaves and with whom, and weekend stayers get their own group? We’ll show you in a demo.
