A day in the life of a Hazelwood West High School student:
Khaki pants, black sweaters, black boots, and authority. They get a pep in their step when they see kids in the halls and when things get out of control. Be sure to have a pass and a reason where you’re going. You’ll hear them say “Hello” to students they know and a “Get to class”, or a “Clear the halls” when you’re running late. Even though they can be serious, there are days when all they want to do is laugh it out.
Five minutes every 90 minutes these halls are filled with hundreds of students going to their next class. Students stop, talk and go on with their day. The only time these hallways are quiet is when the students are in classrooms learning something new. You’ll catch hall monitors checking students passes and standing at four way intersections of the halls watching out for skippers.
The cafeteria. Where the students spend their mornings, afternoons eating lunch, and at 2:15 p.m. to go home. The cafeteria is the most common area where students and staff socialize, hence why they call it ‘the commons’. Not only are the students filling in these seats, but they are filling their mouths with school lunch, homemade dinner from the previous night, or a bag of chips they got from the vending machine.
Trust me when I say, we need traffic lights on this intersection. The main staircase, a place you don’t want to go through. These students don’t know the difference between the right side of the stairs means going up, and the left side means going down. You’ll hear a lot of things when you’re around here, security yelling “Get to class!”, “ Get out the HALLS!”, and students yelling “Hey! I haven’t seen you in a minute.” and “Whatcha been up to lately?” If you listen long enough, you might hear someone’s life story in those five minutes passing periods last.
Art rooms, a great way to end your seven hours of stress. When students wind up in any art class, they’re not thinking about the drama, they are worried about putting all the anger and frustration into beautiful art pieces to show off and tell everyone “Yeah, I did that.” Many students at West High school don’t have much to say, so their words normally come out by art pieces they create.
