This year, at Chisholm Trail, we’ve integrated many social distancing measures, one of those being the one-way hallways. While there have been many students not following these directions, there have also been many teachers ignoring it as well. 

 This is an issue because it shows that teachers can break the rules set to protect our wellbeing. This is not just a teacher skipping ahead in a lunch line or going off campus for food; these teachers have violated a safety regulation, and it sets a bad example for the student body to follow. 

 This is also just unsafe for the teachers. They cross paths with students and surely bump into them from time to time, having gone against the traffic of the hallways. We’ve had teams quarantined, classes put into the large lecture hall for babysitting, all due to one teacher’s illness.

Now is not the time for anyone to be ignoring safety measures, especially teachers.

 I’m sure the teachers would respond with how busy they are or that they’re the authority and aren’t restricted by student body rules. These aren’t student body rules. They were set for the school attendees. Students are busy too. We don’t get to be late in most of our classes or we’ll be counted as tardy. We have five minutes to get to wherever we’re going along with having to follow these one-way hallway rules. The students have adapted beautifully. Sure, students don’t always follow the rules. But teachers know better. This virus doesn’t care how much authority you have, nobody is an exception.  

 Instructors must act twice as cautious as they have twice as much on the line as students. Teachers should call other teachers out. Adults often fear being judged by their peers versus the indifference students typically feel toward peer scrutiny. Teachers can help to correct this and encourage safety above everything else. 

 Whether it be full-time teacher or part-time substitute, these adults need to understand what’s at stake right now. Every single day I wait at my seventh period door for the tardy bell to ring so I may go down the one-way hallway the wrong way; there is no one else in the hallway, so I am putting no one in harm’s way. And every day at least three teachers or some academic representative walks past going the wrong way during the passing period. If the teachers helped their peers understand how important it is to follow safety measures, maybe we could finally get the student body to understand as well.