The beginning of the 2024-2025 school year saw numerous changes: a new principal, a renovated cafeteria and numerous policy changes. One of these new policies involved restricting students to either the cafeteria, the library or the senior high gym until 7:50 a.m. One student sought to reverse this.
“I wanted to change this rule because it was really inconvenient for students and teachers,” Joseph Sutton, ‘25, said. “Teachers have to stand outside their classrooms and police all the students around, while students have to try to find ways to sneak around the teachers to get to their lockers to get what they need for the day.”
Sutton emailed Ashley Morgan, the interim principal at WHHS, about the subject, not only bringing up statistical data collected by students but also personal reasons and anecdotes. In doing so, he was able to convince Morgan to allow students to go to their locker before heading to a designated area.
“I like the freedom that the students had,” Sutton said. “It allowed me to get stuff done in the morning. Right now you can’t go to the attendance office before 7:50, which I find really annoying, especially if I need to turn in a college visit form. It’s easier to do that before school, but if I have to wait till 7:50, then it’s a lot more crowded.”
Along with changes to morning arrival, WHHS is adopting the wide policy on the usage of Yondr pouches, forcing students to be off their cellular devices for the duration of the school day. The announcement has been met with mixed reactions, with one student even organizing a petition to prevent the implementation of the pouches.
“I don’t have any super personal reasons, but this is mainly for other kids who sometimes will need to contact their parents,” Aidan Mollohan, ‘26, creator of the petition, said. “I’ve gotten some comments on my petition of students saying they need to have their phone in case they have a panic attack and need to call their parents.”
Mollohan’s petition received nearly 3000 signatures in almost a month after its creation and went on to use it to help try to convince the board of possible alternative ways to reduce phone usage. While Mollohan and his supporters do not approve the implementation of the Yondr pouches, they do understand the call to reduce phone usage.
“One of my biggest concerns is that teaching phone responsibility is not the same as just taking it away,” Mollohan said. “Responsibility is learning to live with something, not just acting like it doesn’t exist. In fact, this could increase problems with phones because kids will eventually try and break them out. They’ll get antsy after school and have to make up for all that time they missed on their phone.”
The extent of Mollohan and Sutton’s efforts to change their respective policies will become clearer by Sep. 30, the day WHHS plans to implement the pouches and the new locker rule.
“The administration is trying their best,” Sutton said. “They’re open to feedback. They aren’t students themselves, so they want to know how they’re doing [and] how their policies are working. They’re trying to find something that works for students and teachers, so if it’s not working for one or both, then they’re more than willing to listen to feedback.”