At Rogers Heritage High School, new policies and even old policies have been brought back to life. So, the question standing is, what do the students and teachers think about these policies?

Some of these policies include the locked door policy, closed campus policy, and the grading system. Each policy has its own reason as to why it is in place. Teachers and students are likely going to think different things about the policies. However, both sides should be seen.

The locked door policy is whenever the bell rings, the doors close and you have to go to the office to get a tardy slip and if you are not back before 15 minutes of class is taken up, you are marked absent, whether or not you are in class. The closed campus policy simply means, once you arrive on campus, you are not to leave unless you are getting checked out. The grading system is classwork/homework is 10% of your grade, CFA’s are 45% of your grade, and CSA’s are 45% of your grade. Therefore, teachers are assigning more homework as a result.

Zac Wallace, dean of students, stated, “I feel great about what we have implemented this year. Having all the exterior doors locked was state mandated, but it keeps our school a lot more secure. Having these policies in place is what keeps our school safe. If there are policies that would help the school become even safer I would love to implement those as well. Motivations of everything we put in place are to either help the students with their academic goals, or to keep everyone safe. If anyone has anything they would like to be put in place, please communicate those with our faculty.” 

Similarly, Azaylie Nicole Thomas, freshmen, stated, “I feel as though they are pretty well set into place. The school does a pretty okay job at making sure the rules are followed. If I could change one thing about the policies, I feel like they should have an open campus lunch. I believe that it would show kids that the staff trust in them, and kids would stop having to try and sneak out to their cars for lunch. Those are the reasons I think it would be pretty beneficial for the students at Heritage to have an open campus lunch.”

RHHS having a closed campus lunch is not something new. They have had a closed campus lunch for a long time. Students tend to have quite an argument against it, however, there has not changed the policy.

However, Jade, junior, said, “I feel that they are good besides the tardy. I would change it because it is unrealistic and not reasonable for students. They are harmful to students because after that 15 minutes, nobody is going to show up. There is no point in going to class if you are already absent.”

Frances Fehr, senior, stated “I feel like some teachers are doing a better job at enforcing school rules and policies, but there are still a lot of things that are going unnoticed and unattended to. I would change the rule about the doors being locked during the passing period because I have seen myself and a lot of people are super late and then missing half of the class just because we can’t get through the doors. Even if you are late, I think they should have someone waiting by the doors to let students in for a few minutes after the bell. I feel like that would be really helpful for a lot of students. I feel like some of the policies can be beneficial and that they have good intentions at heart, but a lot of them come with negative side effects that weren’t necessarily planned out so there is a lot of editing that we can do to our policies to make them better because as of right now, they are more harmful.”

To sum it up, the teachers obviously see and hear different sides of the reasons these policies are put into place. However, the students see it from a student standpoint. Students may discover things that the staff had not thought of before, therefore, it could be eye-opening for the staff. I believe that if the staff worked together with the students, policies could be made that would be both practical and beneficial towards everyone and that everybody would be pleased with them. However, it is much easier said than done. Students would be more interested in their own personal benefits rather than looking at it as a whole or the big picture. So, obviously there are disagreements between the staff and the students, however, it would be beneficial to both sides to see each other’s point of views for each policy.