A new school year has begun and consequently administrators and staff are once again attempting to tackle and eliminate recurring issues at Tuscarora. However, one problem that refuses to quit year after year is the increase of hallway roaming and the amount of time students are unreasonably away from the classroom. Trying various methods including color-coded hallway passes and the newly introduced Smartpass, hallway roaming has proven itself to be a problem that is seemingly impossible to solve. With that being said the question must be asked: can hallway roaming be helpful to students?
While it may be an unheard of idea to some, the benefits of hallway roaming may come as a surprise. Acting as a break from a possible stressful environment, hallway roaming may not always have negative connotations. On the other hand, it can also be viewed as a privilege some students are willing to abuse. For example, in a class where a student was allotted five minutes to take a break and walk laps, the student took advantage of this and was absent for 30 minutes.
Although the majority of teachers and admin try to prevent things from going wrong, students misbehaving is unfortunately inevitable. Be that as it may, should innocent, well behaved students have opportunities taken away from them because of a few troublemakers? For example, as proven in an article from Cornell University’s health blog, “…purposeful breaks from studying to refresh your brain and body increases your energy, productivity, and ability to focus.” On that account, are losing these necessary breaks worth it just to punish a few disobedient students?
Furthermore, school systems recognizing the need for “purposeful breaks” can immensely help an individual as well as eliminate the roaming students issues. To give an example, beginning in 2022, Illinois allows public school students to have five mental health excused absences a year, as reported on NPR. All things considered, if schools are beginning to accept days off for mental health reasons, students won’t have to take as many in-school breaks; in turn leading to a decrease in hallway roaming.
When asking people here at Tuscarora how they feel about the hallway roaming this year Mary-Rose Reed, an art teacher here at Tuscarora said, “I’ve seen less mass wandering, but more of the same group wandering.” To see another point of view on the subject we asked Brianna Wainberg, a Junior who swims, in addition to playing flag football and softball stated, “ I’ve noticed less people roaming the halls, but I’m only upstairs and at school for half of the day. I still see people walking together whenever I go out to use the bathroom.”
There is the argument that some students leave class to go talk to their friends, or just to skip out on learning, but there could be other students who need to leave the class for separate reasons. It’s now nearly impossible for two students to be out of the class at a time, no matter the circumstance. So, if you need a break from class, let a teacher know.
