With a student body of almost 3,000, one would assume that Cal High would utilize all the space it has for students to use throughout the day.

But that is not the message administrators sent last monthwhen they started limiting where students could go during their breaks.

For about a month now, the school has been limiting what areas of school kids can access during lunch, even going as far as to lock the main and world language buildings to prevent students from entering them unless they have a meeting.

The tables in front of the library are sometimes blocked off with police tape with signs about how students couldn’t be trusted to not trash the area as they had been doing.

While this seems extreme and unnecessary, I understand the reason why administrators are implementing these restrictions and it makes total sense.

Principal Megan Keefer explained that there were simply not enough supervisors available on campus to watch all areas of campus or keep all reads clean.

“Our custodial staff has been cut in half,” Keefer said. “We have not had one week with all campus supervisors present.” 

When buildings were left open with nobody to supervise students, bad things happened, including but not limited to littering, vandalism in the bathrooms, and graffiti. 

There were attempted preventative measures put in place before shutting down the buildings all together, but it ultimately proved too difficult to find the culprits of the lunchtime issue and eventually there was no other option besides shutting down the buildings all together. 

I don’t blame students for being unhappy about the buildings being shut. I’m not happy about it either. But after hearing the explanation behind it, it becomes hard not to agree with the school’s decision.

Students’ disruptive behavior has been an issue all year, with bathroom vandalism increasing and some students in front of the library even going as far as to curse at an administrator when asked to clean up after themselves, Keefer said.

Some form of discipline may be good for these students so they know not to continue with these patterns of behavior in coming years.

While it isn’t fair to the students who simply use the buildings as a more secluded area to spend their breaks, it’s the most straightforward solution for the time being.  

Plus, there are alternatives for students who don’t want to eat in the more crowded areas of campus, or prefer to be more spread out from other students as we are still in a pandemic.

Teachers Tom Linda and Eric Billeci have been supervising the stadium most of the year during lunchtime, so students still have the option to go there and not to eat in the quad.

Ultimately, with the combination of troublesome students and limited supervision, the school is doing the best it can to keep the campus clean and safe for everybody.