Emilie Andrews, Staff Writer
December 8, 2023
If you happen to arrive at Nobles between the witching hours of 7:55 and 8:00 am, you will often notice swarms of students sprinting through all entrances of the school, trying to find their assembly seats in time for the ringing of the bell. While nearly all students have encountered this stressful situation, it may be unfair to call this a rite of passage. As we all know, assembly is a vital part of the Nobles community; it is a space of togetherness, welcoming us to school each morning. However, the increasingly tight “cut off” period to enter Lawrence Auditorium evokes the question: do the harsh regulations of assembly attendance truly uphold our school values?
Each morning before assembly, faculty members are stationed outside of the auditorium doors, monitoring the time, and herding students toward the space. More recently, faculty have begun to rope off the doors as early as 7:55 am. While the difference between 7:55 and 8:00 may seem minuscule, those five minutes can be the deciding factor between an eventful assembly viewing and detention. When commuting to school in the morning, students, like myself, more often than not rely on those precious five minutes to squeeze into our seats.
Additionally, in being less gracious with student attendance time in the morning, faculty members neglect the reality that for a variety of inexplicable reasons, mornings just don’t always go your way. So many mornings I have left my house on time or even a little early and still end up sitting in long waves of traffic that cause me to arrive at school just one minute late, therefore missing assembly entirely. If students fail to arrive at school within five minutes of assembly starting, it is understandable to withhold them from attending and mark them late. However, the harsh 8:00 am cutoff should not be as strict as it is.
If students were given the chance to quietly, and politely, make their way to their seats between announcements and performances at the start of assemblies, the number of assembly misses would begin to drop. While impossible to determine how many tardy students would arrive within this window, it is likely that many would feel less pressure to speed on the highway or sprint into school with the fear of being shut out 30 seconds before the assembly begins.
Nobles prides itself on being an open and welcoming space to all students, faculty, and staff. One of Nobles’ essential principles is to “be a community where the sanctity of each individual is respected, where differences are embraced, and where no member of the Nobles community demeans, belittles or harms another.” This statement rings true, yet mornings at Nobles have begun to feel like a mad rush to arrive on time, rather than a polite gesture to honor each individual’s respect for others. In this way, no announcements or performances should ever be interrupted to bring attendance, but there has to be some balance between closing the doors and allowing students to breathe as make their way into school.
With the new addition of “soft start, hard stop” class periods, it is impossible not to question whether or not assembly should be treated similarly. If students were given the opportunity to have a short “passing period” to arrive on time for assembly, there would be less pressure to rush in the morning, and faculty would be able to be more gracious with student attendance during tough early mornings.
(Photo Credit: Zack Mittelstadt)
