Getting to school on time is already a struggle, and having to wait outside before getting to class can make it worse.
Because teachers have meetings in the mornings, students must wait outside the school’s entrances until 8:15 a.m.. There are few exceptions to this rule, and it’s unclear if these rules will ever change. So far, the only way students are allowed inside the building before 8:15 a.m. is due to extreme weather or extracurriculars that meet in the morning.
Being a school located in Wisconsin, our weather can be unpredictable. Anything from a snowstorm to bright sunny skies can happen within the span of a couple of hours. The school shouldn’t pick and choose what days it lets students inside based on the conditions outside because they don’t know what kind of weather we will have. Letting students wait indoors regardless of weather will eliminate the possibility of having students outside in extreme conditions.
There are plenty of alternatives for the number of students who wait rather than having them wait out in the cold. Staying in the front offers little room, but students should still be able to wait indoors. There are a ton of options in the back, however. There’s the pool entrance with enough room for a considerable number of people. Exhibition hallway also has enough space for people to wait in the mornings.
Another problem with having students wait outside is the damage cold weather can bring for music students’ instruments. Instruments should not be out in the cold for that long; cold temperatures can cause instruments to go out of tune and (in extreme cases) break. Students shouldn’t have to worry about their instruments breaking while waiting to get into the school. Not to mention, many students own their instruments, with price tags that can be in the thousands.
There isn’t any reason that students should have to wait until 8:15 to begin with. I understand that teachers have meetings in the morning, but students should still be able to get to their lockers more than 10 minutes before class starts. 10 minutes isn’t enough time. Some students have to walk across the school to get to their classes, and I am one of them. I enter through the back of the school and have to walk all the way to the senior hallway to get to my locker, then all the way to the back of the school to get to class. I arrive early, I usually get to school by 8:10, and I don’t make it to class until 8:22 on a good day. Letting students into the building even five minutes earlier would give students more time to get to their classes and be on time.
Many problems come up with having students wait outside, but if Stoughton High School wanted to fix them, there are a plethora of solutions.