Birds Eye View: JHS Visibility Plan

Jordan’s bathroom plan is back again, now as part of Jordan’s overall visibility plan, an initiative designed around preventing out-of-placeness and potentially harmful behavior within Jordan's walls. The bathroom plan was introduced last year as an initiative to clean up Jordan’s bathrooms and hallways to create a safer and cleaner learning environment.

The bathroom plan was introduced last year in response to complaints from staff and students about the overall poor condition of Jordan's bathrooms, especially regarding student safety. Historically, many students felt unsafe using the restrooms due to behavior from other students, an issue administration wanted to address in particular. The core of the plan as it was introduced last year, was bathroom duty for teachers, who act as both bathroom and hall monitors, preventing skipping or congregating in the areas in and around the bathroom. This year, the plan remains relatively unchanged, with ’teachers maintaining their bathroom duties once a week for forty-five minutes during their planning period, increasing visibility in the hallways and restrooms.

One student I spoke to regarding the plan stated they felt it seemed effective, especially during this school year, noting better overall conditions in the bathrooms and less crowding than last year. Another student stated they felt student defiance made enforcing the policy difficult, as some students may simply ignore verbal warnings. Teachers have been provided radios to contact administration if needed during bathroom duty.

A major new component of the visibility plan this year is the way lunch periods are being scheduled for students. In recent years, which lunch period you had was determined by the subject of your second-period class. For example, all social studies classes might have had B-lunch, while math classes would have had A-lunch. This year, the lunch period a class falls into is based on location in the school, rather than subject. For example, B lunch is segmented to the 400s, 500s, and trailers. In previous years students hall roaming or congregating within the hallways during their second period or lunch period was a major issue, and segmenting the lunches by location rather than subject is intended to make detecting this much easier, as anyone in an area during its lunch period can be assumed to be out of place.

According to the administration, the plan has been very effective in the auxiliary buildings, but more time will be needed to determine its overall effectiveness in the main building due to factors such as students using their lunch period to get chromebooks from the media center or going to student services to speak with their counselors, causing more traffic than would be normal in later parts of the year.

One student I spoke to was somewhat frustrated with the new lunch plan, stating that they felt it separated lunches into grade levels too much due to the arrangement of classes within the school, though they appreciated its intent. 

Another component of the visibility plan is encouraging a mobile administration by providing them with moving desks. This is intended to allow administrators to move around and monitor multiple parts of the school throughout the day, depending on where they are most needed, rather than staying stagnant in their offices. Administrators and staff having radios to communicate with each other is another part of this, as it allows them to respond to any issues quickly.

This plan has been in place for several years, though it was expanded last year to increase the number of staff members provided rolling desks. This works in tandem with the bathroom policy to have a staff member monitoring each part of the building at all times, and having administration ready to handle any issues that arise in any part of the school. 

All components of this multi-part initiative are intended to clear Jordan's hallways and create an environment in which Jordan's staff can easily and efficiently assist its student population in graduating on time and with options.