New Building, New Policies
“With the research we gather, we hope to persuade students to voice their concern on the policies and to possibly advocate for new policies they would like to see get put into place.”
This school year we have transitioned into our new CSH building (447 Wales Ave) and have left the old one (1300 Boynton Ave) behind. The staff and the current students that have been with CSH for the past few years have been affected the most from this. Sometimes transitioning can be hard for some people, and some people can also like the change.
With this new building, there have been some new policy changes that have been implemented starting this school year. In our investigation, we would be interviewing the staff that are behind these new policy changes to gain insights on the faculty perspective to see exactly why these changes have been made. We will also be interviewing long-term students to see how well they are adjusting to this new building, and how these new policies are impacting them (or not). With the research we gather, we hope to persuade students to voice their concern on the policies and to possibly advocate for new policies they would like to see get put into place.
So what exactly is new in CSH? Well, CSH has added multiple new rooms, for example a nurse’s office, a combined gym/cafeteria/auditorium, two balconies, a garden, a co-working space, a principal's office, a library, and more. These specific rooms have either been just added, improved, or have been downgraded compared to the other school we were previously at.
For example, the gym/cafeteria/auditorium was a downgrade because of the lack of space. We wanted to know why we would have to have all of these places combined, and to figure this out, we’ve interviewed someone that had to do something with this decision: Mr Noah.
During this interview, we asked Mr Noah, “What was the decision process in combining the gym, cafeteria, auditorium?”
He replied: “We said we needed a full size gym, as it’s a highschool. To achieve that, because doing giant spaces is very difficult in New York and because real estate square footing is really expensive, meant that we had to sacrifice cafeteria space. It was really the only way to get the other things that we wanted, like a large computer lab, and a co-working space.” In Mr. Noah’s answer he states that in order to have the spaces we have on the second floor, a sacrifice had to be made to the cafeteria to get the computer lab, co-working space, and the NPR. He also stated that it would be hard to get a lot of space in New York City due to the real estate being really expensive.
After this question we asked him: “Regarding the new policies, what made you come up with them?”
He replied: “I did not come up with the policies individually. Mr. Kale really was the brain behind the adjustment to the uniform and simplifying it a bit. Scheduling was me, and some of the other policies involved Ms. Jude, Ms. Alder, and Ms. Liani, who really drive culture and academics. Mr. Kale really thinks about broad organizational policies, and Mr. Pooler thinks about policies connected to college and career.” Through this interview Mr. Noah stated that it is not only a one man job, but a whole team job. Faculty members all had a role to contribute and set new policies, add on policies, or keep them the same. In this interview, we obtained information that can help us provide students with background information so that students can gain information on how decisions are made between different departments to create these new policies.
Now, since we know the decision making process to the decision about the gym and the new policies, we will now interview a faculty member, and some of the upperclassmen that have been with CSH for a couple of years and have experienced the transition from the old building to the new building the most. We have interviewed Ms Medina, the art teacher, Sameer Mohamed, a senior, an Anonymous Senior, and Steven Martinez, a Junior.
Here are their responses to the question we asked:
How was the transition to the new building?
Sameer Mohamed: “The transition to the new building felt good. Having a new space in a new environment feels a lot better than when you have two to three different schools inside of the building.”
Steven Martinez: “The transition for the new building was really good because Comp Sci High was in a small space where students were having trouble fitting in.”
Ms. Medina: “It was seamless because I didn’t have to move everything from the old building to this building, but the unpacking was crazy.”
Has your transportation to the new building gotten better or worse from the old building?
Sameer Mohamed: “I wouldn’t say easier or harder, it’s just a bit challenging. Especially since you have to wake up early to get to the train station on time.”
Anonymous Senior: “Honestly it’s worse because it's farther away from my house and there’s a lot more delays, but I don’t mind because the new school is a lot better than the old one.”
Steven Martinez: “The transition from the Boynton building to Wales Avenue was challenging for students like me because we live pretty far, so we have to familiarize ourselves with the new train and bus route. Not only that, but students need to take responsibility for arriving on time at the new school as the change in transportation has impacted the usual schedule we used to take.”
Ms Medina: “Bad, very bad. I used to travel maybe less than 20 minutes everyday to work over there in the old building, now it’s over an hour and I’m in traffic most of the time, and sometimes there's parking, sometimes there's not, and sometimes people break into the cars, as where in the other building we had a parking space where you could just park there and no one will touch the cars.”
What do you think about the combination in the gym (gym, cafeteria, auditorium)?
Sameer Mohamed: “I don’t like the combination of the gym, cafeteria or the auditorium. But at the same time the space is small and you have to try and find as many ways to use the space as you can.”
Anonymous Senior: “I thought it’d be very chaotic, but we’re actually making it work as best as it could so I think it’s great.”
Steven Martinez: “The combination of the gym and the cafeteria and auditorium was not the best decision, because the school should have its assigned rooms for its own purposes.”
Ms Medina: “I personally don’t like it; we’re going to have an arts showcase coming up on November 15th, and we don’t have a stage, but we’ll make it work.”
How do you feel about the new policies of the building?
Sameer Mohamed: “The uniform policy is pretty strict and I feel like we can’t wear much of our uniform sweaters unless it's Friday for CSH swag day. The bag search is useful even though it can hold up the line for metal detectors in the morning. Students really just want to make sure they're safe in coming to a space, especially parents.”
Anonymous Senior: “I honestly think that the new policies are kind of a lot but they are still very reasonable and understandable to an extent.”
Ms. Medina: “For the uniform I like it because I can distinguish who’s who, but I can tell from the students that it can be frustrating. For example, in the winter I would understand why students would want to refuse to wear khaki pants, but at the same time it also can be like that once you get a job.”
How do you think some of these new policies are unfair?
Sameer Mohamed: “For the uniform policy I feel like it’s unfair how we can only wear custom swag from CSH on Fridays. I wish we could have CSH swag day everyday throughout the week.”
Anonymous Senior: “I think some of them are unfair because they are a bit demanding and very specific.”
Ms Medina: “I don’t think any new policies are unfair at the moment, but I would believe students who have a more negative feeling towards the new policies because I am not getting my bag searched, so it doesn't really affect me.”
After gathering these responses we have some insight about how a few people from the CSH community think about the new building and policies. Although we have few responses, we know that many people have the same or similar feelings toward the new building and policies. Throughout these responses we heard lots of complaints for both the new policies and the new building, and while we can’t change the location of the new building, we can potentially change the policies if us students advocate for them.