Beginning the new school year, students were given brand new agendas that are required in order to leave the classroom for any reason. Students are not allowed to leave within the first and last fifteen minutes of class time.  

The requirement of agendas has been able to restore some order to classroom presence and the hallway traffic has reflected this. 

“We’ve definitely seen fewer people wandering the hallways during class,” campus patrol Alma Sifuentes said. “It’s not bad, but sometimes teachers let their students out early and we sometimes have to issue warnings.” 

As the year pushes forward, students and staff have run into a series of problems. The school-issued agendas are held together by a thin plastic spiral that does not fully connect the pages together which is why students like freshman Salvador Herrera have been struggling to keep their agenda intact. 

“My agenda fell apart,” Salvador said. “It’s actually just all over the place in the back of my bag. At this point, I just take a couple of papers out and give them to my teachers for them to sign.” 

Freshman Devin Harris has faced the same challenge. 

“I used to have a hair clip on my agenda to hold it together, but it fell out of my bookbag,” Devin said. “Now I’m missing pages. So, on some days, I can’t even go to the restroom.”

Replacement agendas cost five dollars at the registrar’s office, but registrar Catherine Hernandez mentioned a little-known fact that can hopefully reassure students experiencing the same issue as Salvador and Devin.  

“Right now, what’s happening with agendas is that they’re falling apart,” Hernandez said. “Those I’m not charging for, so if they bring me their agenda, I’ll just swap it out because it wouldn’t be fair.”

Yet, some students have found ways to bypass this issue. 

“I’ve seen people ask people around in the classroom for agendas just to leave the classroom,” Devin said. “Then they just give that person their agenda when they come back to the classroom.” 

This has, unfortunately, put teachers in a rough position. But those like U.S. history teacher Anthony Armendariz try to stick to the rules while still being fair to students. 

“[When students don’t have an agenda] I’ll tell them that they have one chance because the restroom is very close by,” Armendariz said. “I let them know that they have to get an agenda because next time I will not let them go because it is a requirement.”

Contact with these agendas raises sanitation concerns, as students must also take them to the restroom.  

“Definitely not always comfortable with that,” Armendariz said. “If there were a different way to keep track without having to touch them, that would be good, but what the alternate solution would be? I don’t know.” 

Amidst the rising COVID-19 cases within the school, there are some innovations on the rise to avoid this agenda sanitation issue. Math teacher Anthony Crank has a QR code posted that is linked to a spreadsheet that automatically logs the leaving and return times of students that are away from the classroom. 

“I’ll still have any students that leave the classroom take their agendas and IDs with them, but I think that this way we can help keep each other safe and maximize class time,” Crank said.