Marisa Love
Online Editor
Our school has become a prison, like we are all criminals with nowhere to go, like we are hopelessly trapped with no escape. It seems as if students’ opinions don’t matter to the staff; they teach us democracy but they don’t abide by it. Well whether my opinion matters to them or not, I am giving it.
School is supposed to be a place to receive an education, but there should be an element of fun while we’re here. “Tutorial was better when it was with lunch, now it feels like we can’t go anywhere,” says Sophomore Haley Williams. We shouldn’t feel imprisoned like many Heritage students admit to feeling. The new tutorial schedule is a prime example. Now, with two separate lunches there is also a separate tutorial time. Students who already had tutorial are indifferent, but to the other 900 students, this time is tedious. Students are confined to the Den, with the option of escaping to the computer lab or the library. Wandering the hallways is strictly off limits, which is understandable, except how are we supposed to travel from one area to the other? Were we supposed to receive magical powers and I just never got the memo?
More than a few students have had the complaint that while trying to set out to the library, security has stopped them and instructed them to go back to the Den. In the security guards’ defense, how dare these students try to walk from the Den to the library? This is preposterous; students must be trying to start a revolution.
Security says we only have the first couple minutes of tutorial to get where we want to go and we must remain there the rest of the time. A majority of students going to the library just want to check out a book, usually taking 10 or 15 minutes. They don’t want to be stuck there the whole thirty minutes; Students who aren’t officially in tutorial have earned the time to spend with their friends, so why should they be forced to stay in one place? Apparently it’s unreasonable to desire time to check out a book and hang out with friends (even though the free time is well-deserved).
The students trying to go to the computer lab are also in a similar situation. Their only opportunity to use the computer lab is at the beginning of tutorial. Staff claims the St. Helens labs are opened for business, but many students who go there during tutorial without a tutorial pass are being turned away. So students who get grades can’t study too? This leaves an overcrowded den, an overcrowded library, and unhappy students.
The school got rid of one lunch because of overcrowding, but have now recreated the problem by limiting the places we can go. Tutorial isn’t supposed to seem like a punishment, but the way the new schedule is, those of us who don’t have mandatory tutorial are punished. They have made our school like a prison. It doesn’t appear that many issues are being solved with our new schedule. In fact, it has seemed to create more problems and unhappiness among many students.