Walking through the corridors of TJ, students and visitors may notice there is a new way the school is handling people in the halls.
TJ Security Gaurds are not lenient with hall-wanderers or ditchers. Photo by Mateo Rocha
Now in his second year, Assistant Principal, Mike Christoff said that he observed the goings on of the hallways last year and decided it was time for a change. “There were students out of class sitting in the hallways listening to music, students wandering to the vending machines when they were suppose to be in the bathroom, and students being distracting,” said Christoff.
With said problem afoot, Christoff took matters into his own hands and formed a committee to address the hectic hallways. April of last year, Christoff sent out an e-mail to all teachers asking who would be interested in joining his committee. Many teachers responded, but Christoff said he wanted to keep it small. “I didn’t want too many people because then we would have a bunch of ideas and we wouldn’t be able to come up with one solution. The teachers that made up of this group were Matt Spampinato, Eileen Adair, Matt Santambrogio, Brett Butera, and Linda Estlund,” said Christoff.
In addition to gathering a group of teachers, Christoff put together a collection of students. “I did the same thing with the students that I did with the teachers, administration, and security. I asked all of them their opinions of what goes on in the halls during class. Most of them said that students in the halls were very distracting and got classes off task.”
With a committee intact, the group began tackling solutions. The problem that the gang ran into was making a policy everyone agreed with. “Some of the teachers wanted us to come up with a blanket policy that would apply to everyone, but then some of the students were glad that we worked with them and our policies weren’t as strict,” said Christoff. One problem that Christoff says the administration ran into last year was students being punished for being late just once. “We didn’t want to make students go to the pass room if they happened to be late just that one time. About 99 percent of the students here are good kids, but there is that one percent that acts up. We didn’t want a policy that punished the students who weren’t wandering the halls and leaving class, but we needed one for those who did.”
The committee was able to put their heads together and come out with a new policy that made passes mandatory when a student wanted to leave the classroom. If students want to leave the classroom, their planners need to be signed and state where they are going. “We had a lot of problems with students leaving without a pass or having one and not going where they said they were suppose to,” TJ Security Guard, Freeman Walker, said. Now if a student doesn’t have a pass they will be stopped by a hall monitor and sent back to class to get one. If a student ends up getting snacks instead of being at the bathroom, they will be told to go back to class, as well.
Another development in the plan is working with the teachers’ schedules and creating a period to do “hall duty.” In previous years, hall duty was very common. Teachers on the committee recalled that back in the days when there were regular teach hall monitors, the halls were clean, so they decided that TJ needs the monitors again. The committee also recommended that teachers should be used because the students listen to them and know most of them. Therefore, a teacher schedule is made up of five teaching periods, one period to plan, and one as a “duty” period. This “duty” period is when teachers do tasks that the administration assigns them, like department chair or lunch duty. When the hall monitor idea arose, some teachers were assigned the duty to patrol the halls. There are four or five teachers every period that come together and decide who will do what. There needs to be one teacher in the cafeteria, one in the pass room, and the other three patrolling the halls.
Another part of the policy is having the pass room and cafeteria open for students who do not have a class scheduled. “Last year we only had the pass room, which is more like a punishment. This year, DPS wants to lower out-of-school suspensions, so the pass room is a place where students can go to do their work if they get in trouble and it is highly supervised,” explained Christoff, “The cafeteria is a new thing this year as well. For students who don’t have a class period, they can go to the cafeteria and hang out instead of being in the halls. This is not a place where students have to go if they are in trouble, it is just a place to relax and do some work if students want. I am hoping we can improve and create a ‘lounge’ for students to hang out in, but for now the cafeteria is working.”
As the second semester is well underway, the progress of the system is being examined. “So far, it has been a big improvement. The tardies and absences have gone down. In August of last year, there were 81 behavior problems and this year in August, there were only 65. Now, attendance is 91 percent, which is three percent higher than this time last year,” said Christoff.
Christoff isn’t the only one noticing some changes around the school. “There has been a change in the hallways this year. There aren’t as many kids in the hallway during classes so it is easier to focus during class,” said senior Maddi Doro.
The committee continues to meet and discuss how the new policy is going over. The latest meeting was in January and the group discussed how the system is covering all parts of the school. “I like to hear how it is working and what we can do to improve it. So far, we think it is working pretty well. There are still times when we need security for some situations, but overall problems continue to drop. I will continue to meet with the teacher committee and also poll another control group of students. I went into this hoping to see change and I didn’t want it to be the same by the end of the year. I wanted the policy to change and become customized to TJ. I hope that we can keep improving the policy to make TJ the great school we all know it is,” Christoff said.
