By Aidan Healy
Century High School is a closed-campus school. This means that students can not come and go throughout the day and expect to be able to come back inside without authorization from a parent or guardian. This also means that guests can not just walk in, they must first check in at the front desk. In contrast to this, there are open campus schools. Open campus schools allow their students to leave the school during periods they don’t have class and at lunch with the ability to come back later. In this article, I want to look at the pros and cons of Century High School being a closed campus school and if we are better off staying as a closed campus school.
First, the pros of being a closed campus school. The biggest advantage of a closed campus is that it is significantly safer. In other countries, this would not make much of a difference, but in America, that is the most important part of the decision. Sadly, shootings are becoming more and more common in the United States, and schools are doing the best they can to prevent that to happen in the event that it does. In addition to the school being closed off, we have police officers and security guards on patrol. A closed campus school also gives some more troublesome students the opportunity to focus on their academics rather than skip school and try to sneak back in later because, in theory, they shouldn’t be able to get back inside.
That brings me to the cons. One big, glaring con of closed campus schools is that they try to prevent students from leaving, but are a lot more lenient with people, students or guests, coming inside. For example, a kid might try to leave and isn’t allowed to. That would be good, but another student or person that shouldn’t be at the school could just waltz right in a little bit later and there is a good chance that whoever is guarding the door will have forgotten that person left or won’t know if they should be there or not, depending on how long it has been. With an open campus school, it is more difficult to monitor students, but they are also given much more freedom and less incentive to skip. When kids try to skip at a closed campus school, that is usually because they like the thrill of not getting caught. But at an open campus school, they would not have that incentive. If they want to leave and ruin their grades, that is their choice, or they could just wait until lunch time, go get some food they want, and come right back.
In conclusion, I believe that an open campus school is much better than a closed campus if they still used the same indoor security that they have been using. Both have their pros and cons, but if the freedom aspects of an open campus school were applied to the rules of a closed campus school, I think that would make the best outcome.