Due to recent changes to the Sartell High School policy for posters, decorations, and advertisements, students are more frustrated than ever when they walk into their school and see nothing but blank, white, sterile walls. Now more than ever, students feel like their high school cares more about their test scores than their personal development, high school experience, or any extracurricular activities. If students cannot hang up anything unrelated to academics, we feel like our identity is being reduced to only our academic performance. 

Since the building’s beginning, the student body has made slow progress in making it feel like a high school, but after recent events, what little progress we made has been reversed. There has to be a better solution to the issue of polarizing signage than a complete lack of character in the building. Instead of physical posters and decorations, administrators advocate for the use of television monitors, which in turn, provide their own issues for a number of reasons. The first issue with the monitors is that the locations of the very few monitors are only in the central area of the school, so when students are passing from class to class, the majority of students do not pass by a monitor. If students do have the rare opportunity to pass a monitor during their day, it is during their scarce passing time, when there is not enough time to see more than one slide, read any of the information, or pay any attention at all. 

Without the opportunity to put anything on our walls, students have no idea of the ways they can be involved and connected in the community, and this goes for all of the various groups in our district. Clubs are unable to advertise themselves, nobody can get information about which sports they can participate in, there is no way to advertise different shows, concerts, and music opportunities, the yearbook can’t be effectively sold, and there is no way to advertise the multitude of student council events, such as dances, elections, fundraisers, and even senior week. Even the most non-polarizing of signs, like the posters displaying the national emergency suicide hotline, have had to be taken down: 8x11 square inches that could save a life. With nothing to connect us, it is hard to feel like students are a part of something greater than themselves; students and their classes cannot be remembered if they are unable to leave anything behind. 

When over 1,000 students spend seven hours of their day, five days a week, in a “sad, sterile, gloomy, and cold” building, there is no wonder why our school culture and pride are so low. Students and staff alike of all backgrounds, cliques, and interests have shared their disappointment with the school’s image and demeanor:

“It doesn't feel like they are trying to connect with students”

“Sitting in a classroom full of windows, no matter where I am in the building, I look out the window to the hallway, and I realize I could be anywhere. There is nothing in this building that distinguishes it as SHS, and there is nothing that makes me feel at home, like I belong, or like I matter.”

“It’s a community college where people go to check boxes and then leave - not a high school”

“I feel like I am reduced to 24lastfir & Sslunchcodess”

“It’s not a school, it’s just a building”

High school is hard enough as it is. We should be doing everything we can to promote community and togetherness in a time where polarization is the standard. Please sign our petition to take a step towards bringing Sartell High School back to being something greater than ourselves.