When I walked into the school at the beginning of the year, I was expecting everything to be the same and an easy school year.

When I had found out some things had changed, my stomach turned. It was the first day of school and I was casually walking down the Steinmark hall, going to my car because I had forgotten one of my books. And usually I would walk out the side doors in that hallway, and just as I was about to open the door, I heard someone yell, “NO STOP!” Confused on who and where that was coming from, I walked out the door anyways, and that’s when I realized I made a huge mistake; I had walked through a newly alarmed emergency exit.

We are only a few weeks into the school year, and the changes are already making us students go insane, such as the new alarms on all the doors. Last year I was able to go out of the commons’ doors and the Steinmark hall doors with no problems whatsoever. Using those doors made it a lot easier to get to my car, so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the end of the hall (which is pretty tiring, I must say). My classes are already so far apart from each other, why make me walk more? But now if you go through those doors, a loud obnoxious alarm goes off. And if you’re “that person,” everyone will yell at you. Also if a teacher catches you, you’ll have consequences, like your privileges being revoked or getting a ticket if you continue to break the rules.

Why do we have the alarms on the inside of the school? Although we students think the alarms are annoying and pointless, they are there for a reason. Security reasons to be exact. Rick Shriner, a security guard at Wheat Ridge High School says, “They’re not there to keep us in, but it’s to keep the bad out.”

Last year people would knock on the outside of the doors to get into the school because only one door is open throughout the whole day, and someone walking down the hall would let them in. Imagine that a bad person was knocking on the door trying to get in, and someone walking down the hall lets them in without knowing they’re bad at all. So someone might be letting in a vicious killer and not know it. The alarms are there to prevent that from happening. It basically prevents the ignorant people from letting in people they don’t know. It’s like what your mom told you when you were younger, “Don’t talk to strangers.” But in this case it’s, “don’t open doors to strangers.”

On the first day of school, during all your classes, some interesting thoughts always cross your mind, like, “I hate everyone in this class”, or “this teacher is mean I need to change my class.” So you do, and you go change your schedule. But now things are different. Now if you want to change your schedule it has to be before your classes start, before you get to even see who is in the class or what your new teacher is like.

Nonsense right? Not exactly. In fact, most schools in Jefferson County do this. We just now recently started to do it. But a lot of students are asking why. Why do we have to change it before school? Why can’t we change it after we see who’s in our class?
This change is to make it easier for the teachers. When it comes to getting to know new students and starting a whole new school year, the teachers have to get to know everyone, go over the syllabi, and do so much more. While the students are running around changing their schedules the teachers get behind on their instructions because students keep coming and going into classes making teachers repeat their instructions over and over again. If I were a teacher, man I’d be losing my mind.

Although these changes are crazy and are bringing more conflict and problems to our school, I believe it will all die down soon, everyone won’t care anymore and it won’t be much of a problem. It will all soon just be a regular day, a regular week, and a regular school year.