By: Aleah Sheridan

Staff and students at Grandville High School have to face the same problem day to day. This problem at GHS is the crazy hallways. There are a lot of students attending Grandville and there are a lot of people in the hallways. Students and staff agree that the halls are too overcrowded and have too many “pods” of people stopped and in the middle of them.  One student says “ It feels like I’m herding cattle while trying to get to class. I don’t have time to get them to their pastor and get to mine on time.” 

Isaac Burns, Hayden Goman and Leah Ogren students at Grandville say that they don’t like crowding in the halls. Mr. Kennedy and Mr.Karpowicz were  interviewed say that they don’t notice the problem personally but they understand the issue that the students can go through. The bad things about the halls that we are having is there are too many freshmen who are still trying to find their way around, the size of the halls doesn’t accommodate the number of people in them, the amount of litter that is left behind, the crowds of people standing in the middle of them, and it is congested not a lot of room to move.

Everyone wants changes to happen in the halls. The changes mentioned are things such as lines showing “lanes,” Get rid of lockers, and expanding the halls. “ If money was no object and I had a magic wand, I would love to create a sort of common space for seating, couches, benches, and just more seating. I think that’s a big reason why we see so many people clogging up the halls, at least before school in the middle of the hallways” Mr. Kennedy comments.

  Mr. Karpowicz adds that “One of the only issues that I have seen in the halls is students congregating in them.”  He also said that when it comes to students trying to get across the halls the ones who don’t let them are normally on their phones. GHS isn’t the only high school or school in general to face this issue. “Students have started to become careless with the time they are given between classes and due to the hallways becoming overcrowded the hallway situation is getting dangerous and hectic. Yes, students are still getting to class, but it doesn’t beat the fact that students are three to five minutes late…I admit it can be frustrating to get through multiple students but there are still polite ways to handle situations like this. It’s understandable that sometimes you get mad and just want to push and shove but accidentally bumping into someone you shouldn’t get an eye roll or a brash comment. Students have become so rude when it comes to the hallways that they are just starting to not care about anyone but themselves” states Crista Ramos, a student at Perry High School when interviewed about hallway crowding at her school. 

Leah Ogren, a sophomore at Grandville, states “ During my freshman year, I was walking to my locker to find a group of students standing in front of it. When I asked them to move they shrugged off my request. When I asked a second time they started inching out of the way. Then all of a sudden they all sped up in their steps and one of them fell and they all looked at me and blamed me for their friend falling.” Isaac Burns chimes in “ I was walking from lunch to fourth hour. I was going through the locker bank the middle one by the stairs and there was a huge group of chicks and they were just standing there talking really loudly. I couldn’t get through and I stopped and I asked if I could go through. They looked at me with weird looks, like bad looks. I asked again and they wouldn’t move so I had to go back from in between the lockers and go all the way around.”

There are negatives in the halls but there are, of course, positives too.Some of these are the ability to socialize, the flow is good in most areas. Hayden Goman a junior at GHS remarks “ The things I like are the opportunities to say ‘hi’ to my friends and the ability to walk to class with them.”

There are ways to make the halls a better like informing the freshman more on how the flow works best,  a survey could be created to see who actually uses their lockers and get rid of the unused lockers, or have a place for in each classroom where students can put their materials for each class and eliminate lockers altogether. Other things that would help is if hallway etiquette is taught. This is starting to happen with the GRIT lessons worked on in seminar classes that address things like how to handle it if someone is trying to go up the stairs so they don’t have to push their way through causing a possible “crash” and risking injuries. Another way that staff in the halls could help is by moving hall traffic along. In other words, we need people who stand in or around major halls and makes sure there is no stopping traffic and to prevent “crashes” between students.