Students loitering on campus leads to safety concerns

Students’ loitering around during school hours has been a very prevalent issue, primarily this year.  Many students have been wandering around campus, unsupervised, in order to avoid being in class.

This is worrisome because unsupervised kids can lead to unsafe behavior on school grounds, which can create larger problems, including safety hazards or injuries. The administration’s primary concern is the security of students.

“It’s really about students’ safety. We want students to be safe and in a supervised activity while on campus,” stated Assistant Principal J.C. Farr.

The recent announcements and stricter regulations have helped in the decline of the number of loitering students. Administration and site security are making sure to be present and are patrolling the campus at all times in order to enforce the rules. They are also making sure that TAs, who are commonly found loitering, have tasks to keep them busy so they don’t feel the need to roam around school.

Students caught loitering are simply directed back to class, but if they are consistently caught doing so, then they are assigned a form of punishment, starting with a call home to their parents to determine what will be done to bring the issue to an end.

Now, administration is directing their attention more towards how to fix the source of the problem, rather than assign punishments.

“Right now we’re focusing on students staying in class, rather than focusing on the consequences,” said Farr.

In retrospect, many students don’t view loitering negatively, nor as a serious issue, instead as some time off from their class.

“It’s a break from class and you get to socialize with your friends,” said senior Lucianna Balica.

Administration and teachers are hoping to prevent students from loitering in the near future. Luckily, their current plan of attack is working in their favor and decreasing those numbers.