P.E. facilities lack cleanliness
Sarah Bar

Physical education is supposed to be a positive class, that will make students want to be healthy. But how can they be enthusiastic about staying healthy when the facilities do not promote healthy living?

When walking in to the lockerrooms, the air suddenly gets thick and humid, and the temperature is substantially higher than it is outside. The same thing goes for the weight room.

According to P.E. teacher Tom McKinney, there has been a problem with the air conditioning for a very long time.

Just eight years ago, the P.E. offices finally got their wish granted by being given small box air conditioners. These air conditioners no longer work.

Last year, McKinney felt the situation was so bad that he made a deal with then vice-principal Rita Wilson to purchase the large fans located in the weight room. He purchased two from the funds his students raised from magazine sales. Wilson matched this by purchasing the other two from her already depleted budget.

This year, only two of the four fans are still working.

In locker rooms the humid, sticky air students come back to after working out can be quite uncomfortable. They also have to cram in body to body while being sweaty and hot. It is hard for students to leave feeling good about working out when their skin is grimey.

Just recently electricians were brought in to turn on the exhaust fans which pull hot air out of the rooms. These fans can be heard, but the temperature doesn�t seem to have changed.

These conditions not only make in hard to have fun while working out, but put students and teachers at a health risk. Teachers, who like to model their enthusiasm for fitness, are especially at risk since they teach five periods a day.

Five periods a day in hot and dirty conditions is in no way beneficial to anybody. And, the weight room, which is also always an image of filth, is only cleaned once a week, by a teacher�s aid in second period. When the facility is used six periods a day and after school, a once a week cleaning is far too little.

But Mt. Carmel is not the only school in the district that has this problem. Poway does not have air conditioning in their facilities either.

Rancho Bernardo does have air conditioning, being a newer school. But the way their system was engineered, the air conditioning in the gym sucks out a lot of air, and takes it away form the separate class rooms. Therefore, all the P.E. facilitates remain without air conditioning.

This district has the wrong set of priorities. Air conditioning is more beneficial to those who are working out. It helps the sweat evaporate and the body cool off.

The conditions every student in this school has to face at some time are way below healthy standards. This problem must be seriously looked at before people start getting sick. There has to be money in the budget somewhere to keep the students and faculty healthy. Where is it?

Saturday school falls short of goal
Jennifer Townsend

Administrators profess their concern over the number of students attending Saturday school who simply read, do homework or engage in other so-called "punitive" activities. Moreover, some students neglect to even serve their assigned Saturday schools because they either "forget" or, more likely, find the punishment negligible.

Last year, in certain instances, students were able to serve those four weekend hours beautifying the campus, instead of loafing in a classroom. Kudos to the administration for implementing such a policy. However, they ought to take further steps in promoting such an idea and enforcing that policy.

Whereas in the past people clamored that it violated state law to force students to do physical labor, such as picking up trash and assisting the custodians, by current state law such work can be assigned..

Since the proclaimed goal of Saturday school is to change behavior, allowing a student to complete homework, read a magazine or simply remain sitting with his eyes open accomplishes little toward that goal. This lack of behavior modification is exemplified each time students miss two detentions knowing the repercussion will be Saturday school. Simply put, Satuday school alone deters little.

In fact, some students last year demonstrated the levity of the current policy by serving as many as 12-15 consecutive Saturdays.

Mandating all students on the first offense to either assist in campus beautification, through cleaning up the mess to which the student most likely contributed, to perform community service.

Although presently the administration is not seeking this as a first option, according to Accordance Coordinator Frank Andruski, they should consider it if they truly want to deter Saturday school recidivism. This win-win situation would not only significantly decrease the number of repeat offenders, but would benefit the campus and community as well.

Wiring increases access to info
Kate Schmidt

With all the people working busily and quickly throughout classrooms, students may wonder what is going on. Wires hang from ceilings and walls are being torn apart as though our classrooms are being tapped for surveillance.

That is not at all the case, although MC is going through many changes for the better.

Since July the proper procedures have been taken to hook up computers and the internet, install telephones, fix the intercoms and install cable in every classroom.

In just about every situation, there is a price to be paid. This is one such situation. Work activity will proceed into January and the total cost will amount to over $600,000.

After all the work is done, every classroom will be fully equipped to function in the modern age- something we were not able to do until this time.

The possibilities abound. For instance, the school could run its own cable or outside cable if it wanted. With working intercoms and telephones, it will be much easier to communicate with the whole school or individual classes if so desired.

Computers for students' everyday use may be the best advancement for our school. The internet can be accessed and students can store a file on a file server and then call it up to continue working, even if they are in a different classroom.

So with a little more time, work and patience, our school will be in a much better position to give students the education they need. A little dirt and dust along the way won�t hurt.

Sweeping away tardies: Should the administration enact tardy sweeps?

Jon Saperstein Tardy Sweeps are a waste of administrators time and money. If implemented they will not serve their purpose. Every year the administration tries to implement programs that, in theory, will solve all the school�s problems and stop world hunger at the same time. But everyone must remember before they jump for joy at our new Utopian school that even Communism works in theory. This year, administrators plan to put in place a system that would, on any particular random day, assign students Saturday School instead of the usual penalty: detention when they are caught being tardy. The thinking behind this, according to attendance coordinator Frank Andruski is students will be intimidated by the thought of Saturday school so they will be enticed into being on time. For those students who are normally on time, the tardy sweeps will be a great pain. Every day there are a few students whose alarms don�t go off or have trouble getting into the parking lot and they end up barely late after running to their locker, then to class. If they are picked up, not only do they miss the beginning of class, but they also have to spend valuable class time filling out the Saturday school paperwork. Is it worth detaining a student 10 minutes for being 10 seconds late? Some teachers feel the same way and don't give out detentions. Of course this is against the rules, but it makes sense. If a student walks in late, it is easier for the teacher to ignore it and continue with the normal flow of class than to stop what he or she is doing, publicly embarrass the person, fill out a detention for him or her, and then continue. The tardy sweeps won�t fix this problem of classroom interruption because students will still walk into class late. The only difference being that he/she will have a pass. The teacher still is interrupted and this time further into the class, when the material being covered is theoretically more important the students will have missed the beginning of the lesson or the test, and the teacher still will have to change the attendance report. The only thing tardy sweeps do are rearrange our problems; they do not solve them. Class should be treated more like college. If students miss a few minutes of class, it is their loss. The problem is the ineffectiveness of tardy sweeps. Very few of those who are late will be caught. The apprehension of violators is similar to what the police use to catch traffic violators. There are only so many administrators and dozens of classrooms to be monitored. It is impossible to catch all of the students without the assistance of the airplane that police are beginning to use to identify speeders on freeways. The small number of students caught will not scare enough students to make it worth the administrators' time. The administration�s attempt, although a noble one, is an exercise in futility. Anything short of the death penalty will not keep students from being late.

Jennifer Townsend Society, in order to eradicate problems and prevent them from occurring again, institutes various punitive measures which far exceed the crime. However, overall, they work effectively to curb repeat offenses and deter others from ever committing them in the first place. The administration, in a display of good udgement, recently decided to implement a tardy sweep policy to prevent students from being late to class. According to Attendance Coordinator Frank Andruski, the sweep will happen a couple of times a week. Those caught in the sweep will receive Saturday school instead of a detention. While it may appear drastic to punish a student with four hours of school on a weekend for merely being late by a couple of minutes, the times demand a change from the status quo. For example, according to Andruski, during the first week of school, almost one half of the students assigned detention did not attend. Specifically, on one day, only 17 of the 42 students assigned detention actually attended. Similar numbers could be found for the past few years. Obviously, students feel indifferent toward the current system. Last year, over 7000 detentions were served. The time spent in detention is often used completing homework, reading magazines or simply sitting. This is not to mention the wasted resource of having a teacher supervise those in detention. Most students, if given the option between sprinting to class to avoid Saturday school, or casually strolling in after the bell, would choose the former. Additionally, teachers in the past contributed to the present disregard for the tardy policy. When some teachers choose to not give detentions to late students, it builds disrespect and indifference toward the system. Consequently, students knowingly arrive late to class assuming that no punishment will ensue. Obviously, the current system fails to accomplish its objective of having all student in class before the bell rings. According to Andruski, the same 25-30 students are consistently in detention because of being tardy. Thus, an additional motivation is necessary. Having random weekly tardy sweeps will provide that additional impetus to arrive to school on time, especially after serving one Saturday school because of the sweep.