School procedures are changing like clockwork.

Along with the changes in parking passes, student registration and teacher’s classroom locations that have been put in place this school year, students can now only move in one direction down third hall with hopes of clearing up congestion.

The administration made the decision this morning to only allow third hall traffic to move towards main hall, changing up the routes students have to take in order to get to their classes. Some students have reported being late for their classes even after the changes. With this being the first day of the traffic flow change, the effectiveness of this new rule is uncertain.

Early this morning, Assistant Principals Kari Stewart, Tim Ridley, Cynthia Bell and math teacher Brenda Thornsberry all sat down and discussed this new traffic plan. “We all kind of analyzed it, and looked at several different angles, but ultimately in the end we all just said to give it a couple of days and we will go from there,” said Bell.

Junior Scott Higdon is one of many who thinks that the new hallway traffic directions are ineffective. “It doesn’t help. I feel like it just makes everything slower,” said Higdon.

Some believe that these changes have made traffic in the hallways worse. “I don’t think they should have changed it [the hallway directions] because it’s making the hallways worse than they already were, it’s causing more traffic jams in the middle of the hallway,” said senior Taylor Starr.

As far as the reason for so much congestion in the hall, some of the assistant principals have concluded that it is because of the number of students coming out of the science wing and partly because of the increase in the amount of students. “We noticed that we have basically four lanes of traffic coming out of the science wing that takes up that entire doorway [at the end of third hall]. You think about a downtown street, that’s basically what we have here. We have a whole lot of cars on a downtown street, and sometimes you have to go all the way around the block in order to get somewhere, that’s just the way it is,” said Bell.

“We were actually projected to go down in numbers this year, and I don’t think we have. I think we’ve actually increased in numbers. Right now, we have over 1500 students. With that many students, the hallway and congestion area between third hall in the crosshall, that intersection, has just been a madhouse. It’s taking students an additional two minutes, if not longer, after the bell rings to make it through that doorway so we are trying to see if making that entire square one way will help,” said Bell.

Junior Julia Kromenaker was late to three of her classes today. “On the first day I was late because of the traffic in third hall. I’m not sure if they [the direction changes] are really helping or not, all I know is that it takes forever to get to class because there’s so much traffic,” said Kromenaker.

“Give it time,” said Assistant Principal Stewart, “it’s like driving downtown. It may feel a little slower for you but as a whole the traffic ends up moving more smoothly. It’s for the greater good.”  

As the new school year progresses forward, there may be further changes pertaining to the traffic flow, depending on how well this change goes.