1st Place, Staff Editorial
2023-24, Division 2, News Writing
By Staff
Portrait
East Lansing HS
On Jan 25, 2023 the automatic ELHS notification system sent out an email to all students and staff to follow up after the previous night’s school board meeting. The focus of the meeting was to address the presence of a gun at one of the high school’s basketball games and the expelled student who had easily carried it into the building. The meeting was several hours of testimonies from community members who couldn’t sit quietly in their justified outrage. The email consisted not only of a school board policy reminder but also a list of new policies that the school board was considering to combat the rising concerns of gun violence at ELHS. Students and staff alike had many open concerns about the planned changes, ideally set to begin on the following Monday.
The email explained that the list was assembled based on student, teacher and staff input because those are the voices that matter. With our future in the hands of the board, many of us disagreed with their decisions. But to the relief of a few hundred nervous teenagers, the strength of the phone, detention and tardy policies has phased out in quite a few classrooms this year. Still, there were a majority of rules implemented from the list. But after being required to enforce them, maintaining positive relationships with students became much harder for some staff members. As a result, consistency in upholding punishments was the first thing to fall through the cracks. However, as the pendulum swung both ways, this meant many of those rules became unevenly enforced from class to class. With every teacher having freedom to implement their own requirements, the structure depends on the room you are in rather than administration’s policies.
In terms of safety regulations, the board took a hands-off lead. With new responsibilities like hall monitoring and bouncers, many teachers and staff members had trouble committing to the role of officers, and the expectations of the students dwindled. The first white flag was waved when teachers were asked to volunteer their free periods to peruse the hallways hunting down class-skippers, a system that seemingly lasted no longer than a few months and was replaced with hall monitors who don’t enforce policies or get students to class in a timely manner.
Several rules in the list of 15 were regarding the monitoring of the hallways and bathrooms, as well as reinforcing the existing tardy policy. ELHS has had many issues with fighting and attendance. It is no secret that the bathrooms here are a hot spot for dangerous behaviors, or at least they were last year. Today, the student population has been lifted of numerous tensions, but we’re not certain that we’re out of the woods.
The first rules that the board failed to implement included safety measures such as student ID scanners, classroom walkie-talkies, and a main office panic button. All of these had the potential to protect the people in this building more than our current less-than-ironclad tardy policy. With actual security measures that go farther than hallway monitoring, we could finally feel like we are safe.
Rules will always be an important part of any high school, but this proposal was not the help this school needed. Over a year later, we still find ourselves tense at the echoing ping of a mid-day announcement. Not just afraid of being humiliated for using our phones, but we are now afraid of being unable to contact our loved ones.
Within the first month of January, the United States alone has had 94 deaths as a result of mass shootings. Each year, America finds itself worse than the year before. Gun violence is not a hopeful project the school gets to half-complete. If this is how we are “committed to change,” then it is no secret that a year later there is still tons more work to do. The wasted potential of our board focusing on petty teenage misconduct rather than student safety, is more than just disappointing, but horrifying.
NW-06. Staff Editorial
Staff editorials should represent the opinion of the staff, editors or editorial board on a timely news matter of concern to the school, community, state, nation or world. They may express appreciation, offer interpretation or attempt to deal with problems.
Judging Criteria
- Represents the opinion of the staff or editorial board
- Topic relevant to interests and/or welfare of school or students
- Wins reader interest with a compelling lead
- Presents evidence/interpretation in logical sequence
- States issue; uses effective examples, facts, and comparisons to clarify
- Deals with specific issue: avoids preaching, rhetoric, and cliches
- Shows sufficient thought and research
- Sentences, paragraphs of varied length; written clearly, concisely and vividly
- Proper diction/grammar