As students piled into school on January 6th after two weeks of relaxation, holidays, and trips, they were met with the not so welcoming ring of the 7:25 a.m. bell, representing five minutes until class.

The entire first semester of school at Coral Springs Charter consisted of checking the time on your phone to see when you could burst open the classroom door. The class change bells were nowhere to be found. “The company seems to have only one guy who knows how to fix it [the bells],” said Principal Jodi Robins. “We asked for months and months and they kept saying they’d get back to us.” The bells were finally put in place through a remote laptop setup.

However, instead of the familiar ring, students heard a noise which many have described as a sound you would hear in a psych ward or hospital. Junior Claire O’Connor said “It sounds like there’s a patient on the loose.”

Another thing that has been widely noticed is that the bells do not ring right as the minute changes. Teachers have noted kids standing by the door ready to leave. When they see the minute change on their phone screens, they pile into the hallway and have to be told to come back inside the classroom and wait for the bell.

Charter students are continuing to get back into routine and adapt to arriving at and leaving class when the bells, which were gone for so long, ring. It is possible we may return to the typical bell ringing sound effect next school-year.