PHS recently decided to add alarms to particular doors on campus. These alarms have been put on the downstairs side foyer doors in the E wing, the downstairs outside doors of the D wing, and the downstairs door between both the E and D wings. These alarms caught the attention of many students and staff members because if one tries to use these doors incorrectly, the alarms are triggered and proceed to beep extremely loudly. Students have been told by teachers that these alarms were installed to stop kids from leaving and skipping their classes, though they could also be a new security feature. Their purpose is that when a student tries to use them to leave at an inappropriate time, they will be activated and a teacher or security staff will come and send the kids to their class and turn off the alarm, simple enough.

The problem is that when a student uses these alarms to leave campus and are interrupted by the sound, all they do is leave either way. By the time a staff member gets to the door to catch the student and turn off the alarm, that student is now far gone. They did work at the beginning when no one knew what caused the noise, students would wait there and try to figure out what caused the noise and by the time they figured it out, a staff member had found them.

Many people have pointed out the many inconveniences regarding these new alarms.

Many students talk about how much of a distraction they are when they’re in a class near the doors and they become activated, and the beeping doesn’t stop because so many staff have given up on trying to keep them off. Multiple teachers have put in complaints too because of how annoying they can be because of the echo through the halls of Pasco High School. Because of this, I took the time to interview a close friend of mine, Natalie Lopez. When asked the question, do you think they affect more than they help, Natalie had the idea that “it made people sneaky and [created] a different way to improvise” [when skipping]. This made a good point showing how kids just had to become more creative with what they chose to do with their time. The reason for all these alarms has been rumored to be mainly kid skipping but it could be for a new security protocol although that is hard to believe considering that multiple students activate the alarms for no reason whatsoever. This primarily annoys teachers that are just trying to teach or enjoy their lunch and/or prep period. Over time we have heard fewer and fewer of these alarms. Kids have either given up on skipping or used a door without these alarms. The problem of skipping may or may have not decreased with the new installment of these alarms but those alarm noises will forever be annoying to everyone in the building.