On Friday, February 22, a new Code of Conduct handbook was sent out by interim principal Teresa Allen, accompanied by an in-school announcement notifying students that all changes would be implemented the following Monday. This intercom announcement was the first notification of the updated handbook.

Two reasons were given for the mid-semester release of the handbooks, with the first being a failure to provide it earlier in the school year.

“One should have gone out probably in August, but it just didn’t go out,” said Allen.

The more important rationale as to why it was provided is the second-semester policy change that states that students can no longer wear earbuds in the hallways and between classes.

This change was the new administration’s way of showing the teachers that they will listen to their ideas.

“The teachers came back in January, and said that they [earbuds] were becoming too much of a distraction,” said Allen. “[It was] mainly in the classrooms because they weren’t being taken off from the hallways to the classrooms, or students were taking the last five and the first five minutes of class to either get them out and get ready for the class change or […] to put them away after class change.”

Although this policy had been previously announced, confusion resulted from the handbook’s release due to its statements on other school policies. Contrary to what the handbook says, students are still allowed to be in possession of their phones during the school day.

“They [students] can still have their phones out in the hallways, and they can use their earbuds and phones at lunch,” said Allen.

The handbook also states that backpacks must be stored in lockers all day, but this is also not true.

“That is something that I think they [the assistant principals] put in in error; that they did not take [out], but what we announced on the intercom was more the details of it [the policy changes], so earbuds,” said Allen.

Allen explains that the phone and backpack mistakes are present because of the time crunch they had.

“We tried to get it out [quickly] because it should have gone out in August,” said Allen, “so [the other policies were] just overlooked.”