“It is a critical element of our school safety and a building wide expectation that students wear their ID and lanyard on their neck at all times.” This message was written in a ParentSquare message on Aug. 8. by Assistant Principal John Morse. Only being about two weeks into school, this gave many students the impression that wearing their ID would be strictly enforced this year.
But after a few warnings and classroom checks, lanyards are so obsolete that a majority of the time the lunch cashiers don’t even hold up their scanner because so few students are wearing their IDs.

Just like IDs, SHS has proposed many crackdowns on rules this year and not followed through as they said they would. While, of course, students don’t want to be punished more, proposing rules that aren’t enforced is diminishing the power of future rules because students expect they won’t be imposed then either.

Another example of a new policy this year is the phone policy where teachers turn a sign in their room to denote if phones are allowed or not. While this can depend on the teacher, many are not consistent about flipping their sign.

The dress code was also touted as a pressing issue that would be disciplined if violated. However, many students walk around with no sleeves despite that being the only point emphasized around dress code by Principal Amy Boone in the beginning-of-the-year video.

Parking passes have also been noted as required in SHS weekly emails since the beginning of the year, yet as of Aug. 25, according to Officer Heather Crowder, no one has received a parking ticket.

These rules are supposed to make the SHS environment better, whether that be by keeping students safe by identifying them, or creating a more comfortable environment with dress code. These policies not being enforced raises the question: Do we need all these rules if we can function fine without them?

Administration should enforce rules if they are going to be put in place. If they aren’t going to be enforced, why put them in place at all?