This phrase is something that students at BMS hear on a regular basis. 

Picture it. You are just about to leave French class, which happens to be in the high school hallway, when a couple of people won’t stop talking. 

The bell rings, and everyone stands up. But of course, we can’t leave until that couple of people are absolutely silent. 

It takes a minute, until they realize that everyone in the classroom is waiting for them. They finally stop, and you sprint out of the classroom to get to your next class that happens to be across the building and up a flight of stairs. 

You run out into the hallway. 

Cue the slowalking crowd of high schoolers. You may have to go under a couple in love holding hands and through a close knit crowd of football  fanatics (while avoiding getting hit in the head with a football).  When you finally get past them, you’re at the stairs. 

The stairs, the most deadly part of the school— friends pushing each other while screaming loudly, the teacher who requests the stairs to be clear so they can get through, and the kids who suddenly fall and slow down everyone around them. You don’t even have time to see if the person on the ground is okay.

When you make it past the stairs, you have to wait for a break in student traffic. It’s like waiting for the light to turn green. 

You sprint as fast as you can down the hallway dodging students every which way. You can see your next class just a couple doors down. You have ten seconds before the bell rings. 

You are almost there, when an aid steps out of who-knows-where and screams, “NO RUNNING!” 

You skid to a stop and reluctantly speed walk. You are five feet away, and then the bell rings. You walk into class, and your teacher reminds you that it was your fourth late in a row. 

Now you have detention. 

This ridiculously short transition time makes our students very stressed and very nervous when traveling to their next class. It is a mess in the hallway, and the chaos leaves students sprinting as fast as possible. Especially when teachers leave the door locked, and students crowd around the door, it ends in a huge traffic jam.  Kids are pushing and shoving and getting hit by backpacks and getting their feet stepped on. 

If people care about our social, mental and emotional health, WE NEED MORE HALL TIME.