In the first week of October, high school administrators announced the creation of WHS Standard Time in response to mass confusion over incorrect clocks and wayward bells.
“You just never know what time it actually is, and why would that matter? We can teach students to have a flexible mindset by switching to our own time system,” said Ms. Cary Devin, the high school’s newly appointed timekeeper.
According to Devin, WHS Standard Time is synced with the clock in her office, but the new time system is not without problems.
“I just don’t know what to do now because a power outage on Wednesday stopped my clock at 2:57 AM,” Devin said.
As a result, administrators informed the school community Thursday that in order to keep to the time of the master clock, students now must come to school at 3:45 AM for their first class.
“This whole plan didn’t go exactly as we wanted it to,” Devin said.
In a school wide poll performed by the TV/video class, 94 percent of students and 97 percent of faculty said their top question for the vice principals this week was “Why can’t we just fix the clocks?”.
According to a statement released by Devin and the custodial staff, the issue with fixing the clocks is that there are over 100 classrooms, and the clocks are in difficult-to-reach locations.
“We can’t possibly run around and reset every clock. Even if we could, they always end up all wonky within a week,” Mr. Cameron Moore, custodian, said.
Students have started a petition with 524 signatures as of October 28 to simply disregard the clocks and sync the bells with the time shown on computers.
“I know it seems confusing to have an analog clock running the school, but we feel that students are too attached to their devices, and the school day provides an opportunity to unplug and focus on learning. If we synced the bells to, for example, the time on my phone, everyone would be staring at their phones all the time. It just isn’t healthy,” said a guidance counselor with the assurance of anonymity.
The anonymous guidance counselor declined to respond to a question about the impact on student health of getting up at 3:00 AM for classes versus using a cell phone.
Due to the rampant disorientation of faculty and students, administrators were under pressure to come up with a solution.
“The administration sat down for a meeting and decided to make a new strategic plan for timekeeping. Now our timekeeper, Ms. Devin, will have a designated office where she will sit and count the seconds of our school day, and notify us via the PA system when it’s time to change classes,” said Dr. Terika Cohen, co-head of the administration.
This change took place in the third week of October. Devin alerted the student body of the times to change class periods by blowing a pink kazoo, borrowed from the performing arts department, over the PA system.
“After consulting with the school psychologist, we feel that this method of alerting members of the student community will add a musical element to everyone’s day, which we believe will stimulate kids’ minds,” said Devin at the time of the change.
The only issue with the new system is that when Devin consumes coffee too close to the start of the school day, she counts the seconds too quickly, throwing off the schedule, which is why discrepancies still exist with the timing of the “bell.”
On November 1, Emmie Natsumi ’23 and 15 other students staged a protest outside of the main office in favor of syncing the bells to the time shown on devices. Participants wore kazoo costumes and distributed Dunkin’ gift cards to passersby.
“Ms. Devin can tell Dunkin’ to make her iced coffee decaf, or we can all use our common sense to arrive at the obvious solution,” said Natsumi.
