by Isabella Landaverde ‘27 

Everyday, students at Sherwood face the daunting challenge of navigating a specific hallway on their way to class. This hallway, located at the media center hub of where four hallway paths intersect, makes for the most chaotic place in the building. Instead of serving as a smooth passageway to students’ classes, this hallway becomes a congested, mismanaged, unproductive environment to myself and other students.

As students continue to loiter around instead of going to their classes, other students struggle to get around and make it to their own classes on time. In my experience with this ongoing struggle, I have been late to most of my classes in the morning and some in the afternoon. As I walk to my classes through that hallway, I often have to push past groups of students who are standing still and chatting, completely ignoring the need for others to get through, which is not only inconvenient but very frustrating. It gets the most crowded before fifth period and between third and fourth period. With the delays of students getting to their classes, teachers are also losing valuable instructional time waiting for students to arrive, which hinders their students’ education. It is frustrating that the administration does not help to regulate the amount of overcrowding in this hallway.

This school year, the consequences for tardiness have been more regularly enforced, but with the thick traffic in hallways, it is unfair to blame some students for their tardiness. Security should help direct the ongoing traffic and tell the students who continue to loiter around to go to their classes before the warning bell. Additionally, if students continue to linger in that hallway, then it may become necessary for administration to create a “no-loitering” zone outside the Media Center.

Overall, this overcrowded hallway heightens the stress and anxiety for students trying to navigate through the packed spaces. This hallway is just one of many hallways that gets overcrowded in the building, and there needs to be some sort of traffic control in the building. Without solving this issue, students will continue to face unnecessary stress and delays. But by solving this problem, it would benefit everyone by creating a calmer, more organized environment in the Sherwood community.