Coronado High School Closes Campus to Freshmen

Since the 1970’s, the question has been raised as to whether or not CHS should be a closed campus has been raised often. Last year, this issue was finally determined when the School Board unanimously approved a new rule closing the campus for freshman only. The policy was created and endorsed by Principal Karl Mueller, Vice Principal Jenny Moore, and the PATT, which established a committee to study what steps should be taken regarding the closed campus issue. The question that must now be answered is whether or not this policy is working Four reasons have been presented for adopting the closed campus policy: 1) freshmen were getting more D’s and F’s than the other classes; 2) freshmen had more unexcused tardies and absences, especially to Fifth Period, which is after lunch on most days; 3) closing the campus would facilitate the transition from middle school to high school and strengthen social and emotional behavior for the freshmen; and 4) closing the campus would increase school spirit. While the reasons advanced to support this new policy are worthy, closing the campus does not appear to advance these goals and unfairly punishes students who are already proving that they are responsible students. If there was a problem with freshmen grades, what benefit does closing the campus provide? Apparently, the belief was that students would form study groups during lunch and work towards improving their grades. A walkthrough of campus at lunch, however, reveals no study groups. Time is too limited to study during lunch in any event. While CHS administration has stated that students could use CHS resources, such as the library, a visit to the library at lunch reveals virtually no studying at all. Instead, it is a place where kids go to gripe about being shut in on campus. Finally, if the goal was increasing student grades, why create a punitive policy? Wouldn’t a more appropriate approach be to reward those with GPA’s of 2.0 or better with the ability to go off campus? Such a policy would encourage students who are not putting in the effort on their studies to work harder for the right to go off campus at lunch. The second rationale for the new rule was increasing freshman attendance. Again, while attendance is an important goal, aren’t we all supposed to be learning adult responsibility in high school? There are already punitive rules relating to attendance; tardies equal Saturday school. If CHS believed that the Saturday school policies were not enough, then creating a policy for those who are tardy to Fifth period would seem more fair. Why should all freshmen be punished for the abuses of a few? Fostering social and emotional well being, instilling school spirit and easing the transition to high school are also commendable goals, but what does closing the campus at lunch do to support such goals? There are no organized activities, such as at CMS, nor any place to participate in such activities in any event (e.g. kickball, basketball, games). The ASB has activities only rarely and they are not well supported by students. If the administration is truly concerned about transition and social issues, perhaps working on a change in curriculum or encouraging teachers to do more group projects to mix up class groupings would allow students to get to know their peers better. Other ideas would be to increase school spirit, have more school spirit rallies, crazy hair or pajama days and provide prizes to those who participate (maybe coupons to eat in restaurants off campus. The closed campus policy is not working and does not fix the problems it was designed to address. CHS students should be allowed to prove their responsibility. A suggestion would be to keep the freshmen on campus for six weeks, and those with good GPA’s and attendance would be able to leave campus. The school can have color-coded stickers to place on student ID’s, that could be earned by certain benchmarks on each six week grade report. This way, all of the freshmen are not punished, as they are in this current policy, especially the ones who are doing well academically and follow all school rules. Therefore, a new policy should be examined and a positive policy could be tried.