Our View
On any given day at Southfield High School, around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the building is virtually locked down, thanks to new sliding, lattice gates secured at five locations in the school: the book depository, G-House, the swimming pool hallway, B-House and the field house hallway.
The school’s reasoning for the brand new gates is simple: They secure the school by preventing travel to and from various areas of the building, rendering loiterers immobile and making it easier for security to flush out possible threats and bad behavior after-hours. However, it is this same “flushing out” of students less than 15 minutes after the bell rings that has some Blue Jays crying foul.
Due to locked restrooms in O-House, cheerleaders practicing after school have been forced to seek the restrooms in B-House for potty breaks, only to be met by the frustrating gates. Students involved in newspaper and class board are accustomed to maneuvering through the maze of gates to conduct their meetings and go home afterwards.
Budget concerns and short-staffed security teams are understandable reasons to need gates, but the gates that have replaced after-school security have inadvertently made students feel unwelcome and intrusive as soon as the bells ring.
It was a huge inconvenience two years ago students involved in extra-curricular activities had to start finding their own rides home thanks to the end of late bus service. And now they are forced to rush to after-school activities while at the same time using the restroom before it is locked and going to their lockers to retrieve their belongings before they’re banished from O-House. Some who cannot beat the gates are forced to climb them like animals.
The gates do not distinguish between students involved in after-school activities and the few trouble-makers that plague the security officers. As a result, even the well-intentioned Blue Jays feel like they’re being thrown out like rowdy bar patrons.
While security is first and foremost a major priority of school administration and building officials, the rigidity with which students are thrown out of the building is questionable and unfortunate. Students have been made to feel like the school is not their home away from home anymore or even a place where they can feel safe after-hours but rather, an institution that cannot wait for them to leave. In the rain and in the cold, students are told to kick rocks and remove themselves from the building. Surely there is an attainable compromise somewhere that does not endanger students while simultaneously respecting their dignity and their intended contribution to the Southfield High School community after-school.
There are multiple alternatives to the current situation to secure the campus after-hours; issuing passes for students staying after-school and requiring them to check-in, reducing the number of gates only to locations of outside entrances such as the gym, and paying one individual to stay until at least 4 p.m. to lock and unlock the gates as needed, after students have found their way to their activities and respected areas of the building. However, the chances of one of these alternatives being implemented are slim, considering the gates were costly purchases with the intention of being permanent fixtures at Southfield High School.
The implementation of the gate lockdown would be understandable if it prevented previously active illegal activity from happening after-school. Unfortunately, there is a disconnect between the behavior school officials assume would happen after-school if there were no gates and the behavior that persists under the noses of security during school hours that remains unchecked. The emphasis on after-school security is not misplaced, but compared to the freedom with which students commit infractions during the day, it is overbearing.
Instead of honing in on more problematic issues pertaining to student behavior, it seems as though security has decided to deal with their concerns about student behavior by punishing law-abiding, good-intentioned students. Not only is this unfair, but it is blatantly unnecessary. Instead of encouraging better behavior during school and more participation afterwards, the gates are counterproductive. They do nothing to stop students from getting away with mischief during school and encourage students to flee campus at 2:50 p.m. We can only hope that these steel birdcages, if not completely broken, will eventually be opened up enough for Blue Jays to spread their wings after-school and fly, without the infringing arms of security guards and cold steel gates firmly in the way.