The Student View

Parents and other town residents are not the only ones talking about the proposed school building project; students are talking about it as well. Students, such as the two who write here, have experienced first hand what it is like to attend classes in the current buildings -- and they will get no benefit from the proposed new buildings.

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A Time to Move Forward
by Casey Reinhart, DHS '11

As a small town, Duxbury has always made up what it lacks in size in pride. Our pristine beach and the clear blue waters off it have become one of the top summer destinations. Even the oysters grown in those very waters have become world-renowned. Our teachers and administrators provide an education among the best in Massachusetts. Our library and archives offer extensive and comprehensive collections to satisfy every research need. Our sports teams are respected and feared. Yet few Duxbury residents can summon pride for our schools’ facilities and the state of deterioration they have been allowed to slip into.

These days, the hottest topic in education seems to be “twenty-first century skills”. When students graduate, they are expected to be competitive in today’s marketplace by having a thorough understanding of the technology which has been integrated into today’s business markets. Despite the town’s best efforts, the application of technology into students’ education always seems like a lost cause at Duxbury High School. The building was not wired or planned to handle this kind of demand. Most of the teachers are happy to get their classes to the computer lab a few times each term, and students’ skills have not progressed much beyond creating a PowerPoint presentation. Most of the students would probably agree that the bulk of their technological knowledge comes from at-home experience.

Beyond technology, the high school has been unable to meet the needs of the school community within the last few decades. Every year, the incoming freshmen class seems to be larger than the grade exiting and the building has not adjusted well to the strains placed upon it. Many of the classrooms are overcrowded and teachers’ offices have been displaced into what used to be storage closets. The movable partitions between classrooms, which have never actually been moved to most peoples’ knowledge, are so flimsy that teachers must occasionally yell over one another and movies become a distraction for the entire hallway. Classroom heaters are generally over or under-efficient, and in one particular English classroom the air conditioning runs through the winter.

Unfortunately, the poor state of our school buildings has often overshadowed the accomplishments of members of our school community. Progress that could be made within the classrooms is halted by a lack of resources, rendering us stuck in the past and unable to compete with other schools which are far more advanced. Opponents of the plan for new schools need to appreciate that this is a project which must be accomplished. Already the topic has been pushed aside too long, allowing the schools to reach their current condition. On March 12th vote yes for your children on article 18, vote yes for your town, and vote yes for pride.

New School, Please
by Emilie Munson, DHS '12

It is ironic that Duxbury High School, a school that strives to “provide a high quality, comprehensive education that enables students to make connections between learning and life,” allows life so frequently to interfere with learning. Yes, often this is unavoidable: students chatter, cell phones buzz, and people are late to class. However, there is one glaring disturbance to student’s learning which could be aptly remedied unlike so many of the others which are currently ignored: Duxbury High School’s physical facilities.

At a time in their lives when social lives are exponentially more important than academic ones, teens often find it difficult to focus in class. This fact is only compounded when the conversations or films of the class the next door can be heard clear as a bell. When designing the school years ago, it may have seemed like a good idea to include walls that can fold away, allowing two classrooms to be united as one. Today, however, this functionality is rarely used and the walls themselves are poor sound barriers against the day to day ruckus of high school classroom.

Another distracting factor in Duxbury High School is the wide range of temperatures students will encounter as they move from class to class. In some rooms, students may sit literally shivering in their metal desks and fifteen minutes later, in their next class, be forced to shed a layer. In summer months, students seek relief from the brutal heat, which permeates the classrooms, in the library, the only air-conditioned area of school. It is not uncommon for teachers to resort to bringing their students there in order to try to alleviate their heat-induced lethargy.

The Duxbury school building is sometimes not only a distraction, but a hazard. After the gas was shut off over Christmas break, it took science teachers three days to locate the switch which could turn it back on. At the conclusion of much searching, it was found behind an unmarked panel in the English wing. Not only did this fiasco prevent students from doing laboratory experiments using Bunsen burners for three days but it highlighted a significant problem: what if the gas had been stuck in the “on” position and there was a gas leak? How, then, could science teachers be expected to find the unmarked shut-off a floor away?

On the whole, despite the efforts of teachers and the custodial staff, the Duxbury school building is simply an unpleasant place to be. The locker rooms are a maze of gum-covered lockers and unused showers. The cafeteria is dark. Bits of insulation float down from the gym ceiling whenever a ball hits it. Students and teachers crave a clean, airy, organized building in which to learn and work. If ever there was a school that needed revamping, it would be this one.