Every morning, a few minutes after second period begins, the speakers come to life and ASB students read off submitted announcements to the entire school, covering breaking news as well as news that’s not so breaking.
These announcements are an important part of school culture, but unfortunately, they suck.
That’s not to say a lot of students don’t appreciate the announcements. They’re a great place to get daily news like spirit days and club dates, not to mention the mandated reciting of the pledge of allegiance.
But while some of the news is relevant, a lot of it is about as useful as the perpetually locked band hall bathrooms.
Calling out specific students for sport plays, reminders about an assembly that we’re having a week from now, and an advertisement for a club that isn’t running that afternoon are just annoying when I’m trying to get an education.
But announcements are more than just annoying in courses whose tests consistently begin right at the start of class.
Any students unfortunate enough to have these bell-to-bell assessments second period are going to lose test time to a booming voice blaring through a speaker so full of static it sounds like it was installed back before Washington was a state.
It doesn’t help that the interruptions are getting longer, sharing increasingly insignificant facts about increasingly insignificant events.
Most of their content can be found in other places, like LSNs, club fliers, spirit day posters, social media, and even other students. Announcements are a good place to get attention, because they’ve got a captive audience and no volume control, but they need to be reserved for essential information, not 10 minute yap sessions.
Liberty veterans will recall the school’s solution to this issue during the retired eight period block schedule- a second period designed to have an extra five minutes for the announcements to run.
We weren’t alone. Renton high schools allot three minutes specifically for morning announcements. Bellevue schools add a full five.
Liberty’s current schedule fails to consider these kinds of issues. We’ve only been operating under seven periods for three years, and it shows.
With shorter class periods, previously negligible time issues become urgent. Shifting from 90 minutes of class time to 50 means that a five minute distraction is no longer trivial, classes losing 10% of their total time.
Altering the schedule would allow announcements to keep running as they have been. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to happen.
We can still take steps to minimize the disruption. Cut the rambling, talk faster, and leave the phone speaker music where it belongs: unplayed.
