Teachers Alarmed by Students Walking Around the Hallways after the Late Bell

by Isabella Pilot ‘18

During the first quarter, various staff members expressed frustration over the number of students wandering the hallways during class.

“It was brought to my attention that there’s an issue in the hallways, particularly the amount of students in the hallway during class, not only at the beginning or end, but also in the middle when there is instruction going on,” said Katherine Jaffe, one of two elected faculty representatives on Sherwood’s Instructional Leader- ship Team (ILT). “Normally you don’t begin to see issues in the hallway until the end of the year, as classes become less rigorous and there’s more down time.”

Upon raising this issue to Principal Bill Gregory at October’s ILT meeting, the proposed solution asked teachers to note the time and location of any incident and send the concern to the school’s security team. Teachers have also been told to direct students back to class.

“When teachers are asking the students to go to class, students have been disrespectful to teachers; hand gestures have been used to special teachers, the students run away, and the teachers really haven’t felt supported,” said Jaffe.

Security team leader Pat Rooney has been monitoring the hallways via the school’s security cameras and believes that the numbers are less than rest assumed by teachers. “Those caught continually in the hall during class have been issued lunch detentions, referrals to administration, in-school interventions, and as a last straw, suspensions,” said Rooney.

Despite these assurances, world languages teacher Maria Peterson states that she continues to witness distracting behaviors in the hall from a large number of students on a daily basis. Aware that many students ask to go to the bathroom and instead loiter in the halls, Peterson has taken it upon herself to issue a limited number of bathroom passes to her students: three per quarter. She also records the time and date that each student uses their pass. Peterson’s goal is for each student to remain in the classroom and receive the education they deserve.

Peterson recommends hall sweeps after the bell has rung as a possible solution. This approach was used in previous schools where she has worked, and she found it incredibly effective.

World languages teacher Annette Hamilton is also frustrated by these behaviors. She cites a recent occurrence, in which a student barged into her classroom to say hi to a friend and then ‘cursed Hamilton out’ when she asked him to leave and return to class. “I told security about it, and as far as I know, nothing has been done,” said Hamilton. “If they know who is causing the problem, why haven’t they targeted those students? If students begin to realize they can get away with wandering the hallways and disrupting class, the problem will become chronic.”