Point

Rhea Noumair

Imagine you are walking up an incredibly small staircase to get to your next class when all of sudden, three other students decide to walk against traffic and battle you for space in the staircase. Annoying, right?

This happens every day to most students who want to get to their classes; students get shoved by other students trying to get to their own. It is understandable wanting to get to your class on time and it is very frustrating when the staircase leading to your next class doesn’t allow you to go in the direction in which you are headed. But, those rules are very important in maintaining an orderly staircase and generally keep students safe.

Although one could argue that students could fit while walking up and down the stairs single file, our school is too overcrowded to adhere to this. Given the state of the hallways and behavior while walking through, it is fair that staff and administrators do not trust students to follow given rules considering this year’s freshmen do not seem to understand how stairs work.

Back to the main point, rules are always placed where and when they are for a reason. If a teacher placed a sign saying ‘Don’t eat other students,’ of course you are going to wonder “what happened here?” But the stairs and the traffic that goes with them are reason enough to place the one-way stair rule. Covid-19 was also an issue in our school, especially with the overcrowding, the virus was able to spread around easier and quicker. With the designated one-way stairs, there would be less physical contact with someone rather than being forced against someone, face to face, in the small staircases.

Admittedly, it is very difficult to find the two-way stairs when rushing in between classes and they should be placed more efficiently throughout the hallways. But, with proper handling and use of the stairs, they could increase efficiency throughout the school.

Counterpoint

Jael Smith

Your next class is just upstairs and the closest stairway is just outside of your class, but it’s a down-only stair, you can see that there is enough space for you to go up but the administrator standing guard refuses to let you pass. You are late to class again.

Multiple stairwells in our school are one-way stairs and do not allow students to get to their classes in the most efficient way. The problem with many students is that they do not understand how to walk in a single file line and they are ruining stair privileges for the rest of us.

This system has been in the school for quite a while though. The beginning of the year is when the new rules are enforced the most and then throughout the rest of the semester the security on the stairs slacks off and students go up the down stairs anyway.

Although, being shoved into the side of the wall when you are going the correct way is horrible, what is maybe more annoying is when you cannot get to your class on time and have to walk all the way down the art hallway just to go up one floor.

This is not a large issue that the school is facing but it is a minor nuisance that everyday students are annoyed about. Adding together all of the minor inconveniencing rules that the school makes for students to follow can become a larger problem.

The stairs do have enough space for people to walk up and down if they walk single file but because some people (freshman) think that they are too cool for that, they ruin the system and make it impossible for everyone else.