Since the start of the new school year, new school policies have been applied that are stirring up a lot of talk. One of these new policies is the media center not accepting passes during lunch waves or study halls as well as closing for last block.
Why this sudden change?
“They cut two media center aids from the media center, so the librarians came together to try to figure out how to keep the media center running.” said Mrs. J Benedict (librarian).
She explained that depending on the amount of students in the media center and the amount of aids, they have to close at certain times.
This rule was put in place due to the last minute cut in staff, “Four days before school was open, they cut the aids.” she said.
This is a big change from prior years, where students were accustomed to being allowed in the media center during those times with passes to study or do work.
Students around the school were reacting in different ways, some knew about this and some didn’t, but most students think this change is negative.
“I think it’s unfair because a lot of the students need the media center, especially during lunch because if they have no friends in the wave they can use the media center and also get work done.” said Leslie Caltenco (‘19).
Another student wasn’t even aware of the new policy and was shocked when founding out. “It’s like they’re punishing us for us wanting to get our work done.” said Meghan Prabhu (‘18).
The main issue that most students talked about was not being able to get work done for classes due to the fact that people go to the media center to try to get as much work done as possible or use the computers.
“I think it’s unfair because if you have homework or projects to work on you can’t, and it’s just taking away our freedom, especially because we have so much work to do.” said Shamar Bryce(‘19)
Not only do the students have negative thoughts about this policy, but so do the staff, especially the staff in the media center.
“I think it’s a disservice to the students because we have to close at different times depending on how many people are in here, there can only be 30 students per aid.” said Mrs. J Benedict.
Benedict also claimed that this change is temporary and that they’re fighting the media specialists to get the aids back, but the Superintendent of Stamford public schools makes the decision of bringing back the aids in the end. As of now, if students have work they need to get done or need access to computers she recommends going to the career center, where computers should be available.
