Is Going Off Campus Worth It?
Going off campus can be very beneficial for students as they can grab a meal from their favorite restaurant or stop by their house for a bit. However, we wondered if it is worth going off campus since there have been many issues with leaving campus. One main problem is being tardy which many students say the long lines when leaving for lunch are the main reason.
According to a PCNN poll, 68.4% of PCHS students said that when going off campus, the security tactics are harmful. Some expressed that these tactics give kids less time to eat if they plan on coming back for a different half. The most discussed harmful tactics are the random thorough checks in cars and the daily check of the off-campus passes. One student disclosed “At the beginning of the school year they had a meeting with people who were going to have a parking spot and explained that it would be a random check every so often and it wouldn’t be everyone. He checks every single person every day and it’s only keeping us here longer, wasting time that we could be spending at lunch and I think it would help out with tardies.”
This causes 68.4% of our students to say that it takes them 5-10 minutes to get out of the parking lot for lunch – around a ⅙ of their lunchtime. One student says, “it gives kids less time to eat if they plan on coming back for a different half.”
Although students love the security staff, these tactics have taken a good portion of their limited lunch time. To ensure that students get back on time and have enough time to eat, we asked, “In what ways can security check passes faster so students can get off campus faster?” One student said, “Don’t check every car. They see our cars every day, and most of the cars always include the same people. So if a car is familiar and knows we all have our passes as we show him every day, then why stop us?”
In the end, security will have to do its job to ensure the safety of the students and the school. However, this also takes away from students’ break time. Hopefully, staff and students will find a solution in the future to ensure the safety of our students but dedicate enough time to their break to ensure their lost time from security checks is accounted for.
