Improvements to our Campus?

Improvements to Our Campus

 As we know Damien Memorial Highschool is a private school and with that knowledge we expect the school to have high standards including faculty equipment. However lately the equipment hasn’t been up to standards like the wifi, a/c units, and inc. Each one of these would usually not work properly every now and then, which leads to frustration for everyone. 

     Going to the WiFi that the school provides has been a love and hate relationship with the students and teachers. We students of Damien Memorial are grateful that we have the ability to use the wifi but it has just been frustrating with how slow the wifi can be or just even shuts down out of nowhere. Some students have said “It can get a little frustrating when the wifi just shuts off or just straight up just doesn’t work.” This further shows that not only a certain amount of people are getting frustrated with the Damien wifi, but a majority are getting frustrated because many times students try to do their work but just can’t due to technical difficulties with the wifi. As another student says “I mean, the Wifi just sometimes doesn’t work when I come to school even when I have two bars and other times it’s at three bars but for some reason it still doesn’t work. How am I supposed to do my work?” Many students and teachers are feeling this frustration and all agree that something has to be done about the wifi. However this doesn’t mean that the school is just doing nothing with the current wifi situation. Maybe our great technology team is already working to fix the wifi connection to the entire school so that it can be a better experience for us all. Maybe with so many electrical devices connected to the wifi that it causes the internet to slow down and has to be looked into more. We can assume that the school is looking into the wifi and finding ways that the school can go to improve the wifi experience for us all.

     Some students believe that there should be a fail safe if the school ever loses power like having a backup generator. This is the case with the recent fire that was dealt with but left all of the power in the 200 lower half basically just gone. Classrooms experienced no power including lights, a/c, cameras, apple tv’s/ tv, and inc. Even though the lower half experienced no power the top half however, experienced no internet at all. Which also affected the learning for the class on the top and lower half of the 200 building.  During this blackout of the 200 building the chemistry lab didn’t even have the dehumidifier on which is a huge safety hazard. The reason as to why this is a huge safety hazard is that if the dehumidifier wasn’t on there would be no protection against the chemicals in the air. It may take a few hours for the chemicals to react to the air; but it's still a huge safety hazard. 

     An improvement that students believe needs to be improved is the water fountain on the top half of the 200 building that one water fountain has just not been working for the entire year so far. Students believe that it either needs to be fixed or just completely replaced. Some Students have explained the frustration they feel when they have to walk all the way downstairs or walk all the way to the 300 building just to either refill their water or just to get a sip of water. This takes a few minutes of their learning that could have helped them a lot if they’re struggling in that class or even just be really helpful for them regardless of their grades. Maybe it’s some sort of electrical problem? Maybe it’s the plumbing? We don’t really know but we can believe that the school is on this and are trying to make sure that this water fountain will be fixed.

     A question that Ke Ali’i  asked some students is “If you could add something to the campus, what would it be and why?” A student replied to this question by saying “I think there’s less to add and just more to improve.” Students believe that a majority of the equipment here at Damien that don’t really function well like the Wifi or the water fountain should just be improved and not completely replaced or have anything newly added equipment to our school campus. Students also believe if the admins choose the replace equipment route it can just lead to more equipment breaking which could cause more issues than we already have at the current moment. Another question that Ke Ali’i has asked students is “Do you believe that the school is doing positive things to change the facility?” One student noted “I haven’t seen any example of faculty members trying to improve anything around them.” Another statement a student said was “There’s a disconnect between the students and the faculty where they’re not doing anything at all, but at the same time we don’t know what they’re doing. They could be doing something at the moment but we of course don’t know.” Us students believe that the faculty is trying to do stuff to improve the campus around us but we haven’t heard anything from staff about changes that are coming to our campus. Like previously stated this doesn’t mean that the faculty is doing nothing to improve our campus, it's just we don’t know at this given moment. 

     Ke Ali’i asked some faculty staff questions about what improvements have been made on our campus as of lately and some stated that the cafeteria is one of the most recent ones. The cafe used to have a complete cement wall but recently faculty have replaced that wall with huge windows as we see today to make students feel less claustrophobic. Another improvement faculty is looking into is the a/c in the gym and cafeteria which the school has installed but hasn’t been used due to the lack of electricity. The school is trying to get permits from the state to allow them to draw more power so that we will be able to use the a/c units in these two areas so that it wouldn’t be as hot as it is right now. One of the biggest changes of the campus as of lately is the transition of the welcome center from the Christian Brothers residence to the school’s main business center. These are some of the things that the school has in its 5 year plan to improve the school’s campus. You may be asking “What is this 5 year plan you’re talking about?” Well this 5 year plan that Damien faculty are using is to focalize on improving the school to meet people’s demand and modernizing it, but at the same time honoring the old roots of Damien Memorial Highschool. Another improvement that has been in the talks is the monarch room and making DMS TV studio more of a news studio like we have seen on the Big News Studios like ABC and FOX News. Faculty staff believe that the DMS TV is a good way to bring us together as a community to share what’s currently happening around Damien. “We have the monarch center up on top of our TV studio, which has been huge and brings us together as a community. Are there improvements that can be made there? Yeah, I'd like to see it more like a studio studio, like we’re watching DMS TV news in the morning.”

     Ever since the girl’s bathroom electrical fire the school knows that they have to improve the electrical system and plumbing system to make sure that it meets modern standards and so that something like what had happened won’t happen again. You may be asking “Doesn’t the school do maintenance checkups?” Yes the school does do maintenance checkups every week to make sure everything is up to date and with no issues. One maintenance crew member also checks everything daily and reports to admins about whether or not everything is fully functional or not. The school also does state law OSHA check ups once a year as well as fire inspections twice a year. Even with these checkups it’s not a guarantee that everything will be properly working because something could happen after the check which may have happened as to why suddenly the girl’s bathroom had an electrical fire. 

     The school’s equipment may not be in the best situation at the current moment but these things will get improved and resolved in the next few years. It may not be the best of times but at least we know that the school has been talking about it and making plans to fix these things. Hopefully lots of these things will be changed next year when we come back from summer vacation but all we have to do is be patient and let the timing come.