Students Fight for Regulation
Since the beginning of the school year the temperature at Sherwood has fluctuated from what feels below freezing to excruciatingly humid. This has caused students to ban together and form the Temperature Regulation Organization (TRO); students have expressed their irritation in anonymous surveys handed out by the TRO.
Senior Lauren Langston has seen an increase in temperature changes from one spot to another. “It’s as if Montgomery County is trying to combat the [national] obesity epidemic by confusing our metabolism in extreme temperatures,” said Langston. Although students at Sherwood are relatively healthy, this conspiracy has people wondering what the true motives of MCPS are.
Langston and many others believe that it is all part of an elaborate plan to slowly but surely create “perfect students.” Several members of TRO were outraged when learning about this conspiracy theory and further insisted on a regulated temperature. “If you just think about it more,” explains Langston, “what else would [MCPS] gain from the temperature shifts besides impressing outside spectators; we shouldn’t have to conform to what they want.”
However, not everyone agrees with Langston’s theory. Other members of the TRO believe that MCPS just simply doesn’t care. Group founder junior Samuel Gelid believes that the county is so concerned with meeting a set criteria that they neglect the harsh and ever-changing environment of its students. “I find it ironic how the county treats us like we can just freeze or melt to death at any time when we are the ones meeting their criteria,” said Gelid.
The TRO has started a petition demanding a constant and comfortable temperature throughout the entire school. Approximately 1,800 students have signed the petition at Sherwood. The TRO is planning on reaching out and spreading the message to the 25 other high schools in the county through social media. The TRO has confidence that there will be an innumerable number of students who think it’s just too damn cold. And all of them will want to make a difference in the fight for temperature regulation and will rise against the machine.