As you know there has been a new alarm system introduced here at Pasco High School 2022-2023, to prevent students from exiting the building and skipping. Their intended purpose is to notify security whenever the doors with alarms have been opened, which could mean someone is entering or exiting the building. The way these alarms’ function is by going off whenever a door has been opened, that will notify the security, and then they are able to shut them off.

A fellow staff member, Ivan Barraza, works with supporting the students here identified as migrants, states, “I think they’re a good thing, good measure to keep students from leaving campus, and also an alarm system to keep us safe on campus.” These alarm systems are structured to keep students from exiting and entering the building from doors other than the main entrance by the front office, but how are these students responding in return? “They’ll leave through different doors or wait until lunch and leave for the rest of the day,” says Ivan.

The alarms go off many times as students continue to leave the building throughout the day, although the alarms are doing their intended purpose which is to notify security, it’s not preventing students from skipping and leaving. The new alarm system does impact many of the students’ daily life because school occurs almost the entire week, so they hear and see these alarms every day, which means they also have an opinion.

Michel Lopez is a Junior here at Pasco High and she states, “I don’t like the new alarm systems because sometimes when I have to go to CBC at a certain time and I’m closer to one door then the main office door, I have to go all around, which wastes more time.” This is an example of how this new system impacts her daily “life” at school and other students that attend CBC could also feel the same way. Michel Lopez has also noticed that students still tend to exit the building not caring about the alarm going off, she personally has witnessed as she said, “I’ve seen people still get out, and it doesn’t alarm them sometimes. I see kids go out all the time, so it’s not really beneficial.”

As stated, before these alarm systems were meant to alert the security of entering and exiting the building yet students still decide to leave in the middle of the day, so are these alarm systems beneficial? There’s always going to be different points of view on why or why not these alarm systems beneficial. The administration in our school is clearly doing what they think is best for us, and although it may be beneficial, it doesn’t mean that students will see it that way. This generation is a lot harder to motivate. Kids will do what they want nowadays. Some students care about their learning but maybe are not motivated or struggle with a lot of deeper stuff and look at school as another stressful problem. There are so many things that go on that it’s difficult to have all the students on the same page as well as adults. Students will mostly be the reason administrations do what they do, they are trying to help students with their futures and careers. But do you think these alarm systems will last forever?