High school students are often used to grumbling about topics ranging from parents to gas prices. However, if some Northview’s policies had stayed the same, students would have a lot more to complain about. Over the years policies have come and gone, in this new age one of the main changes is cell phones.
“I think probably the biggest thing that we’ve had to deal with in terms of rules is certainly cell phones and their emergence and having them in the classroom and the stuff that comes with social media,” assistant principal Brent Dickerson said.
The use of cell phones in the classroom differs from teacher to teacher. For some, there are no consequences and for others like computer teacher Chalice Dixon, that is not the case.
“I have a phone jail and you don’t get [your phone] back at the end of the hour, you have to come get it at the end of the day,” Dixon said.
Cell phones aren’t the only policy that has changed in recent years. Some were replaced with a better model or in some cases, not at all. Not all policies translate into reality, the best example of this the past requirement of IDs.
“The district at large tried to say that all students and staff were required to wear ID at all times regardless of where you were in the building. It was a miserable failure,” Dickerson said. “If you didn’t wear your ID, you got a warning and a temporary badge made of cardboard. You had two warnings and on the third day, if you didn’t wear it, you were sent home.”
Ultimately the results of this policy caused more unnecessary discipline for students and it ended up being scrapped two years later. Similar policies ended up not working out.
“We had to pay to park,” 1994 graduate and history teacher Mark Spetoskey said, “We were required to shower after Phys. Ed. too and if you didn’t you’d have points taken off.”
So, as the great Bob Dylan once said, “The times they are a-changin’” and he may or may not have also said, “I’m sure glad we don’t have to pay for parking anymore.” All in all, rules change and policies disappear but one thing’s for sure: they’ll never go away forever.
