2 minute read
STAFF EDITORIAL
Upperclassmen must help freshmen learn expectations.
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STAFF EDITORIAL
In schools across the country, students are vandalizing bathrooms, stealing soap dispensers, and some are even stealing whole sinks, all for a few seconds of fame. Although this trend has since died down, the deviant behavior inside schools has continued. Vandalism, fighting and overall disruptive behavior have all increased in schools across the country since our return to in-person learning. But who or what is to blame for this increase in bad behavior? Parents? The school? TikTok trends?
The main cause of the increase in disruptive behavior is the stress that has been placed on students from the pandemic. The current freshman class has not had a normal school year since the 7th grade, which creates problems for teachers because they can not point back to established rules since the expectations have looked so different in the past two years. These problems are evident throughout the building: freshmen not walking correctly in the hallways, vandalism in bathrooms, etc.
Bad behavior might be increasing in the underclassmen, however, online learning seemed to have the opposite effect on upperclassmen. Juniors and seniors have already had the social rules of high school drilled into them. Many upperclassmen were very eager to get back to a normal school year.
Some may look to school’s decisions to do online learning as the catalyst for this behavior; however, it is important not to blame the faculty. Staff shortages, quarantines and overall stress have caused many teachers to be overwhelmed.
The best approach is to help the students who have missed the important years of high school to learn the expectations in the school by establishing structure and strong social connections.
The school can do this through encouraging more underclassmen to join clubs, sport teams and other extracurriculars School events such as pep rallies, which give the student body a sense of community, should also be reinstated.
Solving this is not just the responsibility of the school. We, the students, need to be more patient and understanding with classmates who are struggling with the transition into high school. Right now, more than ever, we need to come together to get back to normalcy.
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