With the new year fresh in our minds, many believe change is about to enervate their lives. Many hope to benefit themselves by bettering their diets and workout plans or even working harder in the classroom, but the staff at Freedom Area High School believed something other than personal change needed to be done. 

Over Christmas break, the custodian staff was instructed to remove all the tables in the high school’s hallways. This action was collaborated throughout the staff at the high school and the final say was from Principal William Deal.

“I asked the maintenance and custodial staff to remove the tables while the student body was on Christmas break,” Deal said.

Many students walked into the high school for the first time in 2020 and were excited to get back into the swing of their everyday school lives but were shocked when they noticed the tables in the hallways are removed. This left students speechless and questioning the reason behind this shocking action. 

This action of removing the tables is due to two primary reasons. The first reason was because of safety concerns. Supervision is an important factor in the world today. Leaving students in the halls unattended without an adult watching becomes very unsafe for not only the students but for the school in general. 

“I think that there are more important things to be done for our safety and the taking of the tables is a very small change,” sophomore Alexis Rinere said. 

The second reason for the removal of the tables in the hallways was due to students being “off-task” and not being engaged in meaningful academic work. 

“Their intent was to create a small-group collaboration spaces, but that intent was largely unrealized,” Deal said. 

Rinere agrees that this will take away from students being “off-task” and reduce disputes of these individuals not doing the task assigned to them. 

Rinere also explains some of the negatives, which includes that there is no place to sit and work in a quiet environment. Also, it changed some students’ morning routines. 

As of the new year and the removal of the tables, students are still adapting to this change that caused their everyday school routine to be switched without a single notice. 

While many believe the tables are in total disappearance, all these tables and chairs are being stored so they could be repurposed elsewhere in the future. 

“There are currently no plans to return the tables to the hallways,” Principal Deal said. 

Here at the high school, many students among all four grades are trying to convince the staff to bring back the tables, but as it looks right now there is no real motivation to bring them back.