BY SAM MASLING, JUNIOR EDITOR
Last week Wilson announced they would be bringing back hall sweeps in order to ensure student’s attendance in class. The hall sweeps were implemented last Monday and, “Will commence everyday and every period until the end of the semester.” read an email from interim Principal Bargeman to the Wilson community. This policy is essentially saying that it should be impossible for students to roam the halls and avoid class at any point during the day for the rest of the advisory.
While this seems like a great idea, Wilson has tried to implement this policy before, and has already stated there will only be hall sweeps two out of the four periods in the day once second semester starts. Furthering the futility of these hall sweeps is the fact that a student caught in the halls after the bell has rung is taken to the office instead of being taken to class, increasing the time in which they are not present in class. This was even more problematic than normal last Monday and Wednesday when classes were shortened by a two hour delay, meaning students swept in the halls would have missed over half of their 27 minute class time after being taken to the office. According to sophomores Jarrah May and Joseph Rosas, some weren’t even skipping class and were still taken to the office.
“Over 160 students were swept on Monday, meaning 160 students missed more class because of the implementation of this rule”
In Rosas’ experience, “I was coming out of the bathroom and I was right outside my classroom opening the door … and they noticed I was going inside the classroom but they still told me to come with them.”
The same thing happened to Jarrah, but was made worse by the fact that his stuff was already inside the classroom.
“I went to class, put my stuff down, then went to the bathroom. On the way back they picked me up even though I explained that my stuff was already in the classroom.” Both Joseph and Jarrah essentially missed an entire period of class because security guards caught them going to class after the bell had rung after using the bathroom.
Wilson has the right idea in trying to enforce its policies regarding attendance, but when this causes students to miss more class, you’re doing something wrong. Over 160 students were swept on Monday, meaning 160 students missed more class because of the implementation of this rule, instead of just being told to go to class.
The hall sweeps are not the solution to Wilson’s attendance problem because not dishing out any real punishment until you are a five time perpetrator, is not a good way to make people want to go to class. Having security guards bring students directly to their classes is the easiest way to ensure class attendance and makes a lot more sense than counterintuitively taking students away from their classes, writing down their names, and then sending them to the classes they should have gone to straight away.
GRAPHIC BY JARRAH MAY
