Students Ring in the Start of the New Year with a New PA System

By Aiden Spicer (11)
aiden.spicer@fwcsstudents.org

September 21, 2023

In South Side, you may have noticed that the bells changed from the light ring to the buzz we have now, which quickly was found infuriating by both students and teachers alike.

“It was a student idea. They really hated the bells,” history teacher Bradley Bowditch said. “They said how much they hated it, and they brought up doing a petition.” A senior government class suggested the petition idea.

“It leaves a ring in my ear,” Joel Escarcega-Perez (11) said.

 “I have sensory issues, and that thing, I need to put my headphones on because they are somewhat noise canceling, but that still isn’t enough sometimes,” Mason Jackson (12) said.

The group of students interviewed all agreed that the change was done for the worse, and went over how it could be startling especially for those with sensory issues.

 “ Yes, the current sound of the bell is temporary. We had some issues with the machine, and so we are on a backup machine right now, our backup P.A system because the bells and the P.A. system are tied together, and so we are on a temporary system and we’re limited with just that bell and that sound for right now until it gets fixed,” principal Zachary Harl said.

Harl explained that the office is having issues with the P.A. system after the new updates and how the sound is temporary until they can fix the old one.

“Yeah part of that is the clocks were installed last year, any time you're working with outside construction agencies that had to do some of the wiring and that’s not something we can do all of that in house within fort wayne community schools. So your kinda on there time frame which pushed us back a little bit as far as install and replacement of some of our pieces and as we were waiting on replacement parts, that took longer than we expected over the summer so at the end of the summer they were working on that.and then the first couple days of school we realized it wasn’t working properly so we had the company out a couple times they tried to put some new parts on a very old system that was made in the 1980s and those pieces were not very compatible it actually fired a chip in the pa system which had delayed things,so now we're kinda waiting on parts to be shipped than installed, so it’s kind of a waiting game currently,”  Harl said

Harl explained that they tried to make the upgrades over the summer but they were waiting for parts. Only then they found out it caused some issues when school started. Then the updates to the system fried a board.

“The new PA computer system is on order, and as soon as we get it, we can change the bells to really cool ones. Right now we had to bypass the old system and use these silly sounding bells until we get the new computer,”  assistant principal April Castator said.

We know that new bells are on order and that we should have a new system in place once they receive it and install it. The petition didn't go anywhere because they couldn’t change the system at all. They broke it with updates. The new system isn’t here to stay, but when it gets replaced we may be better off than before.

Also, don't forget to follow us on Twitter (@TheArrowSSHS) for updates on stories and other content here on The Arrow.

Do you have an idea that you'd like seen in The Arrow?  

Please fill out this form.