Justice 2024

My name is Justice, and I am a sophomore in high school. I want to talk about the restrictive policies at my school that create tension between the students and teachers. This year, there have been a lot of student fights in the school hallways and an excess of students skipping class. Unfortunately, the misbehavior of some students led our school administrators to put in policies that they think will help with these issues, but their strict rules actually make these problems worse.

One of these restrictive policies is our bathroom policy: in our school, you are only allowed to have two hallway passes per day, meaning we are not allowed to use the bathroom more than twice each day. We’re also not allowed to go to the bathroom during the last 40 minutes of the school day. While this policy is meant to stop students from skipping class, it unfairly impacts the majority of students who are being respectful rather than focusing on the minority of students who skip class. Personally, I am affected by these restrictions because there are times when I need to leave the classroom to use the bathroom more than twice a day. I carry a water bottle with me at school, so I have to decide between staying hydrated and not getting in trouble with my teachers.

This problem matters to me because these policies hurt the relationships between teachers and students. Teachers have to enforce these restrictive policies, and students end up resenting the teachers because the policies aren’t fair. When the teachers and students don’t get along, it causes a lot of chaos and problems in the school. I have personally seen that this tension between teachers and students is actually causing more skipping and student fights. For me, it is very uncomfortable to be in an environment where there is so much tension and disrespect. I am very sensitive to tension due to my upbringing, so this chaotic school environment affects my learning. Changing these restrictive policies would cause students to want to be in school more and would make teachers enjoy their jobs more, which would alleviate a lot of tension between the two sides in the school.

The administration also plays an important role in this problem. The administrators make these policies that the teachers have to enforce, but the teachers are the ones who take the blame. A lot of the time, administrators don’t see how their policies are impacting the relationships between teachers and students. They don’t go into classrooms, and they don’t patrol the hallways, so the administrators don’t understand that their policies are contributing to the problem, and they don’t hear feedback from the students to adapt their policies. As students, we don’t get many chances to talk to administration because they are busy throughout the day. When we get the chance to voice our opinion about these policies, it often just looks like students are getting upset because they have to follow rules – it doesn’t look like the rules are the problem, it looks like the students are.

One of the things I would like my administrators and policymakers to do is to understand the roots of the problem – what is causing students to fight and skip class? Then they can help find a proper solution by working with the students who are the people affected by these solutions. Who better to solve the problem than the people affected by it?

Another thing I would like my policymakers to do is to have more programs like Students Speak around the state. Because there are not a lot of outlets for students to voice their feedback in my school, I am very grateful for the Student Speaks program because it allows us to talk to the people who make the decisions directly. I think there should be more direct outlets for students to speak to decision makers. I found this program by chance, but not everyone is so lucky.

Thank you for listening to me today and I would kindly ask you to please prioritize student voices by supporting more programs like Student Speaks and asking schools to re-think their restrictive policies like the bathroom passes that negatively impact student-teacher relationships.