Since the beginning of the school year, multiple events have constantly gone wrong.  

The past two months of school for Ritenour students and staff have been upsetting, unexpected, and very alarming. I’m sure many have conflicted opinions on Ritenour right now. A multitude of chaos started the first month of school where there were fights, threats to the school, a fire, a police search in the building, a community water main break, and arrests of multiple students. This has caused large safety precautions to be taken. 

This has been completely disheartening to staff and students. The school has been on lockdown, and we have had constant worries about who is in the school, what is being brought into the school, and what is going to happen the next day. 

This being only the first few weeks of school, we do not need to worry about whether today will be the day that horror will come. We don’t want to endure all of this and still get to class on time, sit in our seats, pay attention in class, and get work done. 

It is also especially hard to focus on class when students are wanded for an hour daily to check for weapons. This cuts into first period by a significant amount, not to mention the mental toll these events have taken on students. 

The things that have taken place in the past few weeks have affected students’ learning and mental health. The social media threats of violence cause mass panic, and at least one was found to be a credible threat. As high schoolers, we are way too old to be acting in this manner, and honestly, it’s so embarrassing.  

School threats are taken seriously and treated as credible until law enforcement determines to keep the community, school, students and family safe. Posting a threat either on social media, text messages, or any other media source is a crime, and the students who have made these threats have been met with consequences. On a positive note, the Ritenour safety line has been highly publicized and many students are doing the right thing and reporting threats that they may see. 

For a school that preaches being involved in classroom learning, we are not doing a very good job of allowing that to happen.  We have been on the news and gotten all kinds of bad attention, so we need to be doing more to keep students safe. Other schools have taken precautions and we can too.  Webster Groves High School is even giving a breathalyzer test before big events.  

There are some solutions that we can create to make students and staff feel safer in this building.  One of those solutions would be advanced metal detectors.  One small change like that will be a huge help in ensuring our safety, and our efficiency. With the time it takes out of class every morning, it would be worth the money.  Not only that, but it would help us all feel safer, and frankly less annoyed. We do not want them to be seen as demoralizing, but as a way to be more efficient towards the safety of our school. 

Another suggestion would be to hold a student panel. We have seen the efforts of the district administrators, but student voices should help shape new and different solutions. If the people in power were able to hear how we feel about these events, they could provide support and possibly come up with resolutions to all these disruptions, keeping us safe and getting our school back on track. 

We could also hold an assembly to make sure that information gets directly to all students. Every time an event like this happens, students should have someone tell them the truth about what’s going on and what’s happening.

Finally, one last option could be to have another restart day, like we did in 2021. It would allow a fresh start to the school year for the students and faculty, a time to process some of the emotions that are running through the building, and a chance to reinforce expectations.