In the fall of 2021, DGS opened its newly renovated facilities to the public. People were met with a beautiful learning commons that outshined most college campuses, a STEAM wing NASA would envy and a modern, colorful library.
However, after three years of use, the commons are causing far more harm than good. Students use the open space to skip classes and cause trouble, which is seen through the increase in fights and infractions. The custodial staff gives their best effort, but the commons is too big of an area for them to keep clean, especially when students are irresponsible with their trash and make unnecessary messes.
Closures in the commons are also frequent, preventing all students from having access to areas such as the STEAM wing and study lofts. Many wonder why the district would spend so much money, about 34 million dollars to be exact, on these spaces only to deny students access to them.
The truth is, that the learning commons was destined to fail from the moment the idea was conceived. The intentions behind the space were pure, but ultimately couldn’t succeed when put against the harsh reality that is high school.
The learning commons was built for the use of teenagers–of course, there will be people who don’t follow the rules and look to cause trouble.
Many students are trustworthy and want to respect the spaces they are in. However, a small number of students display irresponsible behavior that ruins the experience for everyone. This wild behavior is expected of teenagers and should have been recognized by administration to begin with and guided the renovations in a more structured direction.
But now the school is left with dirty, expensive and unused spaces that create more behavioral problems and foster an environment of distrust between students and administration.
For example, when the garbage in the commons becomes too large of an issue, the cafe and seating along the main staircase are closed for several days to encourage students to clean up after themselves. This school-wide punishment isn’t fair to the majority of students who take care of their messes. Instead of giving consequences to the specific students who leave their trash, everyone is punished.
The students actually causing problems aren’t incentivized to change since they aren’t receiving personalized repercussions, and everyone else feels discouraged because they continue to do the right thing but are still hounded with punishments.
The learning commons was a well-intentioned project that just doesn’t function properly in a high school. Not only does it cause numerous problems that disturb the learning environment, but it also creates an unruly space that can only be controlled by disciplining the entire student body when only a select group of people commit punishable infractions.
No matter the issues it causes, the learning commons is here to stay. There are several things administration can do to make the environment organized and beneficial to as many students as possible.
Let’s utilize the school’s camera system and directly punish the students who refuse to clean their lunch tables. This ensures students doing their part will not be negatively affected.
Instead of caging off areas in the learning commons and rendering them useless, the school should open the spaces to upperclassmen. The use of those spaces would be seen as something that must be rewarded with age and maturity, thus giving the underclassmen something to strive for.
To read more about problems in the learning commons, check out this article.
