One of the most frustrating things for students at Prior Lake High School is getting to class late because you had to weave in and out of traffic on your way.
According to Niche, a website that provides information on schools, Prior Lake High School has 2,922 students, so it is an everyday struggle to get to class on time every day.
Our hallways are constantly blocked by waves of students all traveling in different directions. Most of the time, students are shoulder to shoulder with their peers being pushed and shoved to their classes.
As part of a student-made survey, 87% of students claimed that outside of the B200 pod, it is the busiest.
Addyson White, Prior Lake High School senior said, “B200 is so busy I have to go down the back stairway, and I’m still late to class.”
It also doesn’t help that many large groups of students all meet and talk outside of B200 during passing time.
Since it is centrally located in our school, most students have to walk through it to get to their next class.
“B200 is the bane of my existence,” said Bryce Kneeland, Prior Lake High School freshman.
In the same student-made survey, 75.6% of students said that passing time is too short to be able to get to their classes on time and another 77% said that they don’t talk to any of their classmates on the way to their classes.
“I don’t have time between classes to talk to my classmates because passing time is too short and there are too many people,” said Logan Beenen, a Prior Lake High School sophomore.
Even with walking the fastest path without stopping to talk to their peers, students still struggle to get through traffic.
If you have a class in D300 and then have to go to A100 or even B100, that is a lengthy walk to do in under 5 minutes with student traffic jams.
Alaethia Bridges, Prior Lake High School junior said, “I am always late. Luckily, I have a teacher who doesn’t mark me tardy, but not everyone does. I have to speed walk, and I am always out of breath.”
Some claim that they can avoid B200 and go out of their way to get to their class.
However, if you are traveling from C200 to A20, it would be very inconvenient to go completely out of your way.
In our huge school, it’s hard enough to get to class on the quickest path— let alone taking a longer path.
Besides, traffic jams are evident all around the school, not only outside of B200.
An effective solution to this problem would be lengthening passing time from five minutes to seven minutes.
We cannot minimize the population of our school or magically add square footage, so slightly increasing the amount of time students have to get to class is the most efficient solution.
Longer passing times would allow students to use the restroom, converse with peers and get to class on time with lessened stress.
