Not all change is good: Students unsatisfied with recent financial changes to the school

September 6, 2012 — by Nelson Wang and Jonathan Young

This year, the school has implemented some controversial  changes that are both unnecessary and frustrating to students.

This year, the school has implemented some controversial  changes that are both unnecessary and frustrating to students.
One of these changes is the new locker policy. In previous years, students could purchase their own locks and simply register them with a locker. However, this year students were required to purchase a lock for $7 from the school. 
The school has implemented this new policy in order to have a master key for the locks; however, this is unnecessary, since students already had to write down their locker combos in previous years when they registered their lockers.  
As a result, locks from previous years could not be used; the new locks are a waste of money. In addition, all the locks look the same, so lockers don’t feel personalized.
This new policy has resulted in some students simply refusing to pay for a lock, instead opting to carry their books with them, or using their cars as lockers in the parking lot.
Another issue is the rising cost of food. Last year, a bag of cookies cost $1.25, but this year it costs $1.50. Sandwiches cost only $3 last year and now cost $3.50. Most items this year have gone up 25 to 50 cents.  
While the changes to these food items may seem miniscule, just the fact that the school has upped the prices is frustrating. 
The cafeteria, of course, has to break even and can’t lose money. But we wish the first option wasn’t always to pass along increased costs to students. While we understand the necessity of raising the prices in order to bring more money to the cafeteria, we still feel disappointed at this increase in cost.
Another perhaps unneeded change is the repainting of the school and the red lettering of the wings. While the school might not have looked terrific earlier, repainting the walls to a tannish brown color does not make it look any more inviting. Additionally, the reasoning behind the repainting of the school is suspect because while the target audience seems to be the students, frankly, many of us couldn’t care less about the color of the school’s wall and lockers.
There were previous complaints of the condition of the paint and how the school itself resembled a prison. But like putting lipstick on a pig, painting the school only masks over what was an ugly original design. It’s better, yes, but it’s still not great.
While we understand the reasons for these changes, we still find them annoying. In the future, the school should consider asking students about their opinions on proposed changes and they could provide more input and ideas about what they want.
 
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