Day to day, life comes and goes by for most students as they typically do the same things. Mornings consist of waking up early, starting their journies to school, arriving at school and then going through the school day. Some stay after school to attend an extracurricular activity, while others go home and come back to attend that activity. This all varies depending on the student. 

Regardless of who a student is, any student must enter the school wearing a lanyard that holds a student IDs, and if he or she needs to do anything during class that requires leaving class, a hall pass. 

This pass states where they are going, when they’re going, when they come back, and there must be a teacher’s signature on the pass that shows they are allowed to be out of class for that purpose. The purpose of the time stamp is to help determine how long the student was gone, so it can be in consideration if he/she needs discipline for doing things like being somewhere when he/she shouldn’t be there, doing things he/she shouldn’t be doing. 

Students skipping class in this manner can slowly be stopped by hall monitors who may ask a student walking by to sign their sign out sheet. Specific students who leave class with a pass just to skip in the bathroom can be stopped and spoken to. 

This can also be effective with students who are chronically absent. A chronically absent student doesn’t attend school for at least 15 days in a school year. These students can skip days entirely, skip half of their school day or even just skip specific classes.

Compared to why kids were being disciplined before COVID-19, the reasoning for recent disciplinary issues in Altoona has grown very abnormal, and this has required teachers need to sit in designated areas to monitor the hallways during classes. These teachers typically have a day-to-day assignment. 

The places they are located vary depending on period, teacher and if there were problems found in a specific area. Most commonly teachers are stationed near bathrooms; however, teachers do happen to be in other areas of the hallways as well. 

These teachers are required to stop any students wandering around in the halls and have them fill out their sign out sheet. More importantly, they observe what is going on in the school to ensure that everyone is safe and where they need to be. It is very important to take necessary precautions and have a structure such as this. Having hall monitors daily ensures that for the most part, everyone is where they need to be and when they need to be there.

The administrators of Altoona create things like this because they want to be able to ensure everyone’s safety as effectively and efficiently as possible. They also want to protect the learning process and school environment, the emotional and mental health of the student body and promote nothing but well-being so the school can be a safe space for anyone. Those are the main reasons as to why it is important that hall monitors are there every day to do their jobs. 

However, these hall monitors are also responsible for signing out kids who come into and leave the bathrooms at any time that they are there. 

Teachers should not have to monitor the hallways, or the students in them, to protect the school environment. School is a property where students and teachers come to seamlessly get through a school day protected and accounted for and peers should not be interfering with anything that occurs throughout a school day. 

There was a period of time where students were damaging things in bathrooms, and almost no one knew exactly who was doing what. This affected not only our school, but schools all over the state and country.

In an article about students damaging school property published on Sept. 17, 2021 James Doubek detailed just how terrible it had gotten for a few schools in America, and it is easily comparable to what has happened at Altoona High.

He lists things such as a reported stolen soap dispenser and damaged sink from Florida, to dye staining the bathrooms and teachers property being stolen in Arkansas, and even intentionally clogged toilets and mirrors ripped from the walls and stolen from the bathrooms of schools in California.

Even simple events happen every day that can be a distraction to students. Events such as a student or a group of students running in the hallways, any students being unnecessarily loud while walking in the hallways, a student or students standing outside of windows of classrooms to see their friend through the classroom and many more things are done in this environment just as a distraction to others trying to protect, further and enjoy getting their education.  

This behavior needs to be reevaluated and changed in order to protect the current and upcoming youth. Not only is learning occurring in the classroom being put in danger, but the futures of this generation are also being completely altered by irreversible damage due to unnecessary distractions.