by Sabrina Williams|Staff writer
Although the greatest influx of new students was last year (about 15%), it seems more students are crammed in the hallways than ever before at the start of this school yeat. Students and teachers alike have expressed disdain for the crowded hallways and long lunch lines that plague the new school year. With the population at about 2,700 and growing, it’s not difficult to find a complaint.
“The A, E, and F hallways are really hard to walk through,” sophomore Madalyne Thompson said, “I usually go to the edge of the hallway and squeeze through.”
Madalyne’s freshman year was spent in Indiana in a school about the same size as Johnson, but which housed less people. Although underclassmen like her are forced to make adjustments, their older counterparts seem to have gotten used to the growing community.
“Usually, when I go to class, I just go wherever the wave takes me,” senior Jerad Marz said, “I always seem to get to my classes on time.”
Teachers, on the other hand, seem a little more than annoyed with the bumping and pushing going on within our walls.
“I see so many kids squeezing through the E wing entrance every day,” English Dean Sheila Richards said. “I just think – ‘you know, you can go different routes!’ or, ‘just go find some other stairs!’”
Even with our population growing only 1% over the summer, there seems to be a larger number of kids flooding the hallways daily. So many kids, in fact, Johnson is currently capped for any direct transfers from any other school, and administrators like assistant principal Hensley Cone are ready to adjust to the steadily growing population.
“We are prepared to hire more teachers and level out all of the over-crowded classes,” Assistant Principal Hensley Cone said, “But we do have to wait until our student number stabilizes before we do anything.”
