With each new edition of the Code of Conduct, the school administration attempts to change the rules in a way they hope will be of benefit to everyone. As the state began to take notice of the more high-profile cases of what bullying can lead to, the Code of Conduct was revised to account for what was now acknowledged as a serious problem. Within the school, we have recently had an event devoted to anti-bullying in the hopes that by understanding the consequences of bullying and how the school was there to support the students, students would feel more at ease about their personal safety, as well as treat their fellow students better had they not been before. In this way, rules exist to keep students safe and happy.
But, what happens when those rules can no longer serve their purpose? A number of high school students, myself included, have some concerns regarding the rules that exist. Some students break the rules, unable to understand what is expected of them, and others because they find the rules illogical. Many mean no disrespect to their teachers or other administrators. They're simply trying to get by in a way that works best for them. Blindly following every rule, even the ones we students find to be illogical, is just an empty promise of deference to authority. And that, unfortunately, undermines one of the principles of the school: Being respectful.
A quick Google search will bring up the definition of a rule as being "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere." Yet, according to Henry David Thoreau, "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." This is not to undermine the existence of rules as they are, but rather mean to serve as a warning that actions do not always lead to their intended effect.
Some rules clearly do not make sense. Among the students at school, many are irritated with the rules in place for using the bathroom or going through the halls. The main offender seems to be the 10/10 rule, which dictates that students may not leave a classroom within the first 10 or last 10 minutes of a class to use the bathroom, get something from their locker, or take part in any other activity that involves their body moving around in the hallways. At first glance, this rule seems to be a reasonable idea. If all students stay in their classrooms, then it's easy to tell who is actually being a truant, isn't it? Not quite. This rule fails in several ways. Within what the rule says, in a roughly 50 minute period, there is a thirty minute time frame within which students are allowed to leave the room. This might not seem like a problem, but it fails to account for classes with a "rowdier" combination of students, who may take up to 3 to 4 minutes to settle down, nor for classes that may finish several minutes before the bell rings, meaning that students are only actually allowed to leave the room when there's a high chance they'll miss part of the day's lesson. Some teachers, realizing this, don't let students leave the room because the lesson is so important. Put into an even larger scale, the last and first 10 minutes of a period combined with a 4 minute passing time mean that there's actually a 24 minute gap between times students are allowed into the halls. Compared to other schools, a 4 minute passing time is quite reasonable, but not in all instances. When the crowd in the halls is taken into account, certain places of the school become physically impossible to reach within the given time. From personal experience, unless I leave the cafeteria before the bell rings and am able to avoid the throng of students in the stairwell and main hallway of the second floor, I cannot make it to my study hall in the far end of the English and Social Studies wing of the school. The school is large, and combined with packing your bag, copying homework down into your planner, or stopping to chat with someone on your way to class, many people still only get to class with a minute or less to spare. It takes longer than a single minute to use the bathroom or go to you locker, which might not even be en route to your class.
In terms of time, we come to another set of rules that students find disagreeable: The Absentee Policy, otherwise known as the H-policy, or simply as H-ing, because if nothing else, the English language at least allows us to turn letters into verbs. Most students understand the need to be at school and to come on time, but sometimes what qualifies as following the H-policy gets a little confusing. The 2014-2015 code of conduct defines tardiness as "not being in assigned classroom ready to do schoolwork when the bell has rung." Again, this is reasonable on paper but not in practice. Ask any student if they've ever had a moment of fear that the late bell would ring before they made it to class, or if they've ever hoped their teacher wouldn't notice them walking in a few seconds late, and most will give you an affirmative response, perhaps explain their own story. I know I've experience that, and I also know how relieved I'd felt when the teacher took no notice of it and there was no record of it in the student portal later. Things carried on nice and neatly. This rule is hard to enforce when:
1. The school is large enough so that parts of it aren't reachable in the given passing time depending on your starting point
and
2. some teachers are stricter than others, in practice represented by some closing the door at the time the bell rings to indicate who's late, and others just letting the stragglers filter in as they check homework or get everyone else settled.
(On that note, it becomes increasingly difficult to take the rules seriously when even
teachers are lax about them, but that doesn't encompass all aspects of the situation. This will be addressed more later.)
Since the code of conduct says "Two tardies equals one unexcused absence" and "Two tardies will result in detention," it would be safe to assume that most students are in class on time due to the consequences. Yes, to the former. But don't believe for a second that most students follow the rules because of a fear of consequences. Unless you come to school late, are chronically tardy, or walk in halfway through a period, it is very unlikely that anything will happen to you. I've heard stories of students who have
almost suffered the listed consequences, but I have yet to meet anyone that has actually done so, even among those who struggle with punctuality, and this is only the first level of punishment. To continue, every two tardies is supposed to result in a detention, with the magic number being 8 tardies a quarter (equaling 3 unexcused absences). If you're "cutting" a class, any further tardies will result in a Saturday detention, and if you're "cutting" a study hall, further tardies will result in In-School Suspension. In other words, it's actually more serious an infraction to cut a study hall than an actual class, especially considering that Saturday is students' free time and we;re supposed to be learning while in school. A student loses more learning time from cutting a class when they don't have a class than actually cutting a class. (Theoretically, you could lose a quarter of a year's worth of credit for being less than a minute late to class 8 separate times.)
However, this argument does involve quite a bit of nitpicking. Firstly, it is important to come to class on time in order to maximize effectiveness of the period. When everyone is ready, the class can move through material quicker and even get ahead. Referring to the study halls, it's understandable that cutting a study hall is serious, because unlike when students have a class they need to be in, study halls provide the opportunity for students to make full use of the schools facilities, such as the library, teachers with free periods, or the the Mac Lab (for CGS students). Someone walking in the hallways could say that they were in a study hall heading somewhere else, and most staff (probably a passing security guard or teacher) would take that at face value.
While speaking about that student in passing, it's necessary to bring up another issue students tend to have. Passing is not directly mentioned in the rules section of the code of conduct, but the entire existence of the passing system should be questioned at this point in time. Back in elementary school, we didn't have planners with a section to fill out passes in. Instead, our teachers had cute little blocks of wood or a piece of plastic with the word pass written on its surface. This was actually a very effective method, since you would need to physically have the pass on your person when not in the room, and return to the room in order to replace the missing pass. There isn't a way to get around that. (And actually, should 10/10 continue to be used, this elementary school system would be quite effective. Peer pressure is an effective way of getting students to do things, and if one person can't leave the room until the other returns, it gives students a reason to come back.)
Currently, students fill out their own passes, which are then signed by teachers and check by the teacher or administrator at their destination. Writing in pen is not mandated, which means students could write one pass in pencil, get a signature, then edit the pass as needed throughout the school year. In short, the current pass system runs completely on honesty, which is a wonderful virtue and shows the trust between students and staff, but is also one of the most easily corruptible systems in the school.
The list doesn't stop with just editing a single pass. Other methods of getting around being late or cutting class include signing your own pass (because there's no actual way of verifying a signature) or simply forgoing the pass altogether (because in my three years of school, I've
never had my pass checked by security or staff in the hallways. We exchange pleasantries instead.)
The final major grievance students seem to have is with their study halls, or in most cases, their study hall teaches. Teachers, though students may sometimes forget, are people too, and each person is different in their own way. The problem is, the fact that people are different is exactly the problem. The study hall teacher who wants you to sign out and fill out a pass in order to go somewhere else is the same teacher who just lets you leave after taking attendance the next time you meet, no mention of passes whatsoever. Because of that, the teachers who are sticklers for the rules, consistently making sure that everybody follows them, while seeming reasonable and well-intentioned, also come off as just a little bit irritating. Moreover, since freshman year my peers and I have been told that we can't go to the library without a pass from an academic teacher. However, verbatim from the code of conduct it says:
"Using the study hall as a base, students may exercise several options:
1. Request a library pass- depending on library availability."
Do study hall teachers not know they can issue passes to the library? Do students know they can get library passes from study halls? Do the librarians know students have more freedom to come to the library?
With such a lack of communication, it feels strange to have this rule at all. When doing group projects, students are told that communication is key and that if they feel any member of the group isn't doing their fair share of work, they should tell the teacher. That person will not only not receive credit, they'll also be made to work by themselves from then on, because they've proven that they can't work reliably with others. The students who did their work, and weren't a flaky partner, would get the marks they deserve for their time and effort. Each person is held accountable for their actions as an individual member of a group. So why do some staff, who suggest to students to hold other members in their project group accountable, not do the same thing to themselves? Students and staff need to meet each other halfway in order for an kind of system to work, and when teachers don't uphold their part of the bargain, it makes students wonder:
Why should we?
