Suspicious activities, such as skipping classes and smoke sessions, have left teachers and staff searching for ways to keep students out of undesignated areas during lunch. The administration under Principal Kevin Spainhour finally resorted to disabling all student access codes during third period from 12:05 to 2:05 p.m.
“As I met with some other principals in the past few weeks, we shared some of the struggles that our campuses are facing. The principals had said that one of the things that they had done to see a positive impact was to limit the door access during their lunch periods,” Spainhour said.
This new policy has left some students thinking that it is unnecessary to keep the doors locked.
“I tried getting into the 500 building to go to the library for lunch and they told me to go around. The way they are treating this new solution is sort of overreacting because people can find another way to get into the buildings,” sophomore Jenni Romero-Monico said.
Students coming and going into different classrooms while they’re supposed to be in the cafeteria has become a priority for teachers and administrators.
“Once we moved to the keypads, we no longer had any control to manage the doors anymore. In our building [700 building] we found out that not only during our lunch, but all of this period, people were coming and going from the building. But ever since we had the doors locked, we had noticed that fewer students had requested to use the bathroom,” Social Studies Department Chair Debra Troxell said.
Since the doors were so easily opened with a school ID code, the school board believed that locking all the doors would ensure the safety of the students.
“Although we can’t solve everything, we try to limit and problem solve,” Spainhour said.
Instead of using their personal ID codes that have been provided, it has been discovered that students were using other ID codes to get access into the buildings.
“We’ve discovered that there were codes being shared that are employees that don’t even attend West. I’d like to inform the students that we were able to identify that those codes will be shut down. Students who attempt to use those codes will have consequences against them,” Spainhour said.
For students to stay out of trouble, Spainhour recommends that students stay in their designated assigned areas to avoid any consequences. With the idea of adding safety locks to keep the campus safe, students are encouraged to limit themselves from getting into trouble.
“Yeah, I feel like it’s a good policy. I don’t even know why it’s really necessary to even go into other buildings during lunch when you have so many other options like walking or something,” freshman Annalease Hernandez said