Overcrowding at R.E. Mountain (By: Kanika Khosla)
Overcrowding at R.E. Mountain
As everyone knows, the area around our school is rapidly developing. In recent years, Willoughby has seen colossal growth with new shops, condos, houses, et cetera.
With our community growing larger and larger, there is more demographic pressure on our schools including R.E. Mountain.
Overcrowding at our school is one of the biggest issues we face.
Overpopulation has led to crowded hallways, sharing of student lockers, and portable classrooms.
It is now hard to walk down the hallways as the student body occupies most of the space and leaves little room for movement.
Hallway blocking has many causes. Some students wait at their lockers, adding to the already crowded hallways. Other times, students stop in the middle hallway to talk to their friends. This makes it hard for other people to go through the hallway to get to their class.
If we don't take care, our hallways could look like this
What can we do?
If someone sees a friend they want to talk to, people could step aside so that others behind them can pass. Another suggestion would be for students to go to their own lockers and meet up with their friends later; instead of having a crowd of people waiting for someone by a locker. This would provide more space for movement, and save everyone time.
Blocking the hallways causes bigger problems as many students become late for their classes. It becomes hard to get through so many people quickly in order to get to their lockers and to class on time.
Yet, the hallways are not the only place where problems are occurring; there are bigger issues that happen in classes.
The number of students is increasing, but the school is not getting bigger. This means larger classes and extra portables.
As well, as class sizes increase, not everyone is able to get all the help they need. Some students fall behind as a result.
All this overcrowding compounds the day to day stress on students and teachers resulting in more frustration. It makes learning more difficult for everyone.
While we all have to put up with overpopulation, keep in mind that we all have a responsibility to do our part and decrease the problems as much as we can.