Juniors and seniors who want to go to the Media Center during their study halls must now sign up through a Google Form released around 7:20 and closing at 8:20 each day on the Media Center’s website. Previously, students only had to check in once they arrived at the Media Center during their class period, but this led to overcrowding and safety issues.

     The new procedure limits the maximum number of students down from 60 to 30 per class period for safety reasons.

     “60 or 50 [students] are hard to keep track of when I have all these other duties to oversee as well,” said Michael Russo, the Media Center Advisor.

     Along with supervising the study hall students, Russo also runs peer tutoring, helps with the media literacy class, manages students working on a bulletin board, keeps track of sign-ins/sign-outs, and completes other media-center related duties.

     “It’s down to 30 because that’s a reasonable number for people to be in here and for me to supervise at once,” Russo explained.

     Previously, for class periods that exceeded the maximum number of students in the Media Center, seniors could only come on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and juniors on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

     “[Now], it is first come first serve. It doesn’t matter if you’re a junior or senior, you could come here every day as long as you get the form done,” Russo said.

     Once 30 people fill out the Google Form, that class period option is removed and students can only select the “N/A” option.

     “In the past, students would just go. [The form] allows Mr. Russo to know who’s going to be there,” said Dr. Healey, the assistant principal who helped create the policy.