As students have noticed, the corny and informative announcements are no longer being presented near the end of North’s third and fourth blocks. This is making the usually difficult task of informing students of things much more difficult.  Now two months into the school year nothing but complaining has been heard about this new change. Although it seems like a bad decision, it is also a call to action for students.

The reason for this decision varied depending on the class. Some classes talked so loud when the announcements were on it was making it impossible to hear them. Other classes work up until the bell and announcements, which were generally three to four minutes long, disrupted this teaching and put classes behind.

The plan made to stop rowdy classes and keep them on schedule was to remove the announcements. But this change seems to be causing more problems then it fixed. Club meetings, play auditions and fall sport games have experienced less attendance then past years. Important dates and information that used to be read to the school every day is being ignored. Students say this is because we don’t hear about this information. But this information, these important dates and club meetings is out there; it just doesn’t come as easily to us as it used to.

This is our call to action North. All announcements are located on the North website. You can get to it through the SMSD website, the same website many students go to every day for their teacher’s web pages. So important things don’t come to us as easily, that shouldn’t mean we just accept that we will never know what is going on in our school anymore and complain. What this means is that we should make a bigger effort to look at the website, to read the flyers for activities posted around the school and to ask group leaders and peers for information as well.

There is also a call to action for faculty  members. This new change has provoked some questions. Why are there no student announcements in our second block of the day, but there is always a two to three minute bus duty announcement that interrupts our last block of the day. Bus duty is something that could be posted on the website or emailed to the teachers.

This change is requiring students to step and take some more responsibility to know their schedules. Perhaps North could meet in the middle. While it was tradition to have two students comically share the announcements, we could strive for a one or two minute announcement time. Giving only the important details of which groups are meeting, what time to show up for the game or where to pick up your homecoming pictures. Although, we would probably have to look at what’s for lunch that day, on our own.

These are how changes at North should work. A change is made and the students and faculty improve upon those changes, making it work for everyone.