Every school has its issues and no school is perfect. Hoover has a couple of issues that affect student lives.
Imagine this, you go to the bathroom and you’re in line waiting for your turn but there’s someone in a stall who’s just taking up the stall to vape or smoke and they don’t get out until they’re “done.” This happens to students a lot, and not just at Hoover, but high schools around the district. When it happens here, there is a line to use the restroom and all four stalls are in use but they were like the fourth one in line. When everyone else entered a stall before them, they just waited for that last stall but turns out the people in that stall were just messing around and vaping in there. She had to leave the bathroom and go find a whole new bathroom that was farther away from her class which in turn made her late.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, “10.1% (1.58 million) of high school students reported current use of tobacco products; 7.8% (1.21 million) high school students and 3.5% (410,000) middle school students reported current use of e-cigarettes; More than 1 in 4 (26.3%) of current youth e-cigarette users use an e-cigarette product daily.”
“Smoking in high school has been a thing since a long time ago, smoking was promoted as “cool” as a thing to do and now we’re just seeing the leftovers of that that’s just evolved into something more serious,” stated Associate Principal Mr. Joe Boertman.
Mr. Boertman is worried about students switching from nicotine to THC, and then they’d be dealing with making healthier choices around addiction since THC does impact one’s mind. He commented about how this issue can be resolved and this issue would still happen unless students around school can come to a decision. Do they want to live in an environment like that because if students make it not okay for each other, it’ll make more of an impact then what adults can try to do.
“We are doing what we can,” Mr. Boertman continued. “But the bathrooms are gonna be the hardest because there’s no camera since it’s a privacy issue.”
Smoke detectors would help stop this problem but there are some complications. Hoover installed smoke detectors in bathrooms to see if that would help but it wasn’t as effective as they’d hoped because the detectors would go off for almost everything.
“They’re not meant to be perfect, if an alarm goes off ten times and we check and we find someone doing something they shouldn’t,” continued Mr. Boertman. “It can help us identify the student and offer an intervention.”
Obviously this is a pretty big problem not only in school but in society today. This matter will be addressed and the admin is trying everything they can to prevent it but there’s only so much they can do. Students are the ones that need to make the choice to stop. People have to realize that a problem like this isn’t just going to be solved in a matter of days. It can take months or maybe even longer to actually solve it. Currently, they are trying their best to address this issue and continue to make it a better place at school.
