Hallway traffic must come to a stop

Once you walk into Coral Springs Charter School you can see the sophomore class in the main hallway which is quite spacious while the juniors and seniors are stuck in a hallway which can barely fit all of them.

The sophomores get the biggest hallway in the whole school which is wide and long. The juniors and seniors barely fit in their hallways. It is very squished back there and it is a struggle for people to walk or move at all. Both huge classes try to fit in the back hallway and get to their lockers at the same time people are trying to get to class. This is quite difficult because the lockers are on the walls so people can’t walk around very freely. Students are opening bottom and top lockers next to people just trying to get to class. This hallway is too small for the number of juniors and seniors that there are.

Trying to walk in the back hallway is like trying to squeeze through people at a concert. Students are pushed, knocked over, and have their books falling everywhere. Sometimes the hallway “traffic” stops completely and you are just left standing behind a large group of students and find yourself being late to class. It’s hard to understand why people aren’t moving if the whole point of the passing period is to get your books and go to class. The entire hallway is full of students either not moving or being pushed so they can get to their lockers.

The sophomores don’t need all this room as they could all easily fit in the back hallway. The juniors and seniors would have more space to walk around and there are more lockers to go around. Especially since the 11-12 grade students are upperclassmen, they should get the main hallway. Most seniors and juniors feel the same way.

“I would rather the seniors and juniors hallway be in the main hallway because it gets crowded and most of my classes are by the main hallway anyways,” said junior Maya Anthony.

If the juniors’ and seniors’ classes are by the freshman hallway, it’s smarter to give them the sophomore hallway because it’s in the middle of all the classes. The hallway is wider and this would save the students from being pushed and shoved.

In a poll of 22 seniors, 63.6% of the students said that they would rather have the main hallway while only 36.4% of students said that they like the senior and junior hallway where it is.

Most sophomores like the hallway they are in because it’s spacious and they have lots of room to walk around, socialize and/or get to their lockers.

“I like the sophomore hallway where it is now because it’s a nice big space and it’s what I’m used to so I wouldn’t want it to change,” said Sophomore Samantha Iherisson.

It wouldn’t be fair to take this hallway away from the sophomores now and next year they will be in the junior and senior hallway. Most students prefer the main hallway because it is wider and there’s less crowding. It would be more fair for the upperclassmen to have the main hallway because they are shoved in the back hallway and it’s more students because there are multiple grades.

The true question is, “Why were the hallways set up like this in the first place?” Why did the sophomores get the main hallway which pushes the upperclassmen to the back of the school leaving them to be pushed around?

“It had always been that way and we’ve never really had a second thought on moving the juniors and seniors. 9th and 10th are our largest classes and where you have continuous lines of lockers would be in the main hallway and the social studies hallway. When you get to 11th and 12th grade, those are usually lower numbers of grad levels and they fit,” said principal Gary Springer.

The hallways weren’t decided based on anything but the fact of trying to fit the students where they can. In freshman year the classes are very large and get smaller over the years as students leave, so it’s smarter to put them in the bigger hallways.

However, the freshman and sophomores are often found in the junior and senior hallway anyway because their classes are back there. Therefore, the entire high school is trying to get to their classes in this small hallway while others are getting to their lockers. Even though the hallways are separated, most high schoolers find themselves to be in this back hallway being shoved and stuck behind other students. Some students are at their lockers and others are just trying to get by since there are lockers on both sides of the walls. For most students, it is an everyday thing to be pushed, late to class because they couldn’t get to their locker, or having to wait behind people to move away from their locker.

To conclude, I believe that the sophomores should go to the back hallway where the juniors and seniors are. It’s hard to fit two full grades in that hallway along with the underclassmen trying to get to class as well. Some students are just used to the hallway they are in and wouldn’t want to switch. However, for me and most students, I’m tired of having to rush to get to class on time because I couldn’t get to my locker for 3 minutes or I was being shoved into other people. If lockers weren’t on both sides it would also be much easier because there wouldn’t be people opening lockers instead of moving out of the way. We shouldn’t all stop in the middle of the hallway instead of getting where we need to be. Even if the hallways don’t change, we can start to fix the issue ourselves. Let’s start by walking and stop standing around waiting for the traffic to move.