The Great Sweep

Happy October, everyone, we’ve got broom riders in our midst. With smiling faces the assistant principals are waiting in the halls after the bells ring to “sweep” the late students away to the cafeteria where our principal waits to take names and lecture the students for their tardiness.

While the assistant principals are smiling in the process of sweeping at students’ ankles, said students have expressed their discontent with the strange new situation. Classmates who receive good grades and are involved in and around our school are stuck in the cafeteria, missing precious moments of class time while Mr. Johnson tells them that if they are caught in a sweep again there will be punishments and potential parental involvement.

The reasoning has not gone unnoticed, it’s not a secret that students are often late to class, some chronically so. The students' largest complaint with this new solution is that it isn’t one. The mindful, timely students just want class to flow as it always has. A late kid is not often a huge disruption but the shouting in the hallway caused by surprised and confused students truly was a disruption.

“At the beginning of second period today I heard a bunch of yelling and saw Mrs. Lambert sweeping the air past my classroom. I didn’t know what was happening because I hadn’t heard about the sweeping stuff yet but my class thought it was funny. Like twenty minutes later these two kids walked in and they were all mad because apparently they were gonna be a minute late to class but they got caught in the sweep right outside the room and had to go get yelled at before they could come back.”

“Now I want to be late on purpose just to see what happens.”

“I walked into my next class crying, I’m a good kid. I was just leaving my study hall to go to another class to do my work. I even had permission to go, I just didn’t have a pass because it’s a quick walk and I usually do it everyday.”

These are real students’ words about the sweep, whether you believe this new method is useful or not, it doesn’t seem like the first two days went very well for these students who wish to remain anonymous.

The actual sweeping process came across as funny from an outside perspective until hearing that those who were “swept” felt uncomfortable and yelled at. Could there be a better method of punishing those without respect for the bells? Many people dislike change and this sudden shift in behavior from our school leaders has caused quite the upset. If the administrators are taking time out of their day to disrupt the halls, it can only be assumed that it is also disrupting their work. Can the busy administrators keep this up, or will we need to adjust to another new method soon? Maybe this will be the new way here at Kenmore West, and if it is good luck to us, but maybe it will just be swept under the rug.