Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Thursday, September , 2011. This marks the egress date of the Class of 2011s prime(prenominal) and bear bountiful year at Oxbow Prairie Horizons groom (OPHS), the raw K-12 crop in Oxbow, Saskatchewan. Its an short gorgeous facility, actualize with a astronomic gym (equipped with top-of-the-line sound and lighting systems), interconnected program for the functionally challenged students, ample foyer, kitchen and plane an extra gym. The building is plenty round-minded and compensate has remov open classrooms, but all(prenominal) rose has its thorn, right? Or in OPHS case, thorns.Shortly afterwards starting the 2011-2012 school term, and eventide shortly after wretched into the school in March? of 2011, more cater and students have noticed a few glitches (so to speak) in the system. At first, venial, piddly details that we can easily deal with (overcome? ). the likes of the room design of the biology, chemistry and physical science labs where bulletin boards b e blocked by the teachers desk and com roveer or even by entire counters. Like in the mobile canteen, we were prospered decorous to have beautiful loos installed to salt away our merchandise, but when it came time to actually handle it/them, students were inefficient to see the products anyways.So, in turn, the cupboard doors were taken kill completely. Eventually, the small problems began to tog out more suspicions and more noticeable and expound ones were recognized. Toilets in the washrooms began to constantly flush, some having to be manuallly shut off. The seat in the pasture has no windows, it is fair(a) a small room enclosed of cement. The parking masses is poorly designed. Trying to see around parked vehicles to hitting oncoming ones is solid and it is nearly impossible to maneuver large vehicles around at all.The b enforces drop students off half a block from the important entrances and when students do tangle with the school, depending on the weather, ato mic number 18 required to move outdoor topographic point because the parking lot is either muddy, full of water, or both. Which is not only a bother to our janitors but also to visitors, who sparkle over shoes trying to enter the building. Wireless internet was the first of many large problems to be noticed by the students. They were told that if you have a class where you impart be using laptop computers and it is a large class, to bring a personal laptop to convey on as at that place may not be enough laptops for everyone.So, some did, until they told that the principal wasnt given a password to the schools public Wi-Fi network and they were unable to do homework and sassingments anyways. Even now, after Mr. Petlak has been given the password and used it on students computers, they atomic number 18 unable to access certain(a) sites due to them existence blocked. Sites that students use to complete and accomplish tasks and assignments. wherefore? Because staff at OPHS ar e unable to control this. It is governing body workers in either Weyburn or Regina that do. The habitation temperature of OPHS is, put solely, freezing.During September, where it can be twenty degrees celsius and above, most staff and students were already exhausting sweaters and jackets to class. Which, in retrospect, is not uncommon for Oxbow. In the old high school, anyone working in the building would be runing jackets, touques and mittens, unless you were in the science labs or the main subroutine. thither you would wear shorts, tank tops and hang on flops. But with the excitment of the Horizons School close to being fully built, came the realization that we could actually wear seasonal appropriate clothing to school.Or so we thought. Now, in the new school, we jam pretty well everywhere. With the exception of the sr. Computer Lab, main office and the canteen (which are all normal temperatures), staff and students are still needing to wear layers and even haul blankets form class to class. Why? This is because of the poor commmunictation between our school and Weyburn, where they thusly decide whether or not to partake Regina to turn up the heat in jsut one particular room. Which, after the first few attmepts of doing so, we were told to use the thermostats located in each classroom.These allow teachers the ability to stimulate or lower the room temperature by 3 degrees. Thats it. In one playing field of the school there is actually arctic air being blown end-to-end its rooms. But for us to fix this, we must(prenominal) flip a breaker. Instead of simply pushing a button on a thermostat to raise the temperature, we are required to issue a kick to the Weyburn office, who then decide whether it is a macroscopical enough deal to report to the office in Regina. And apparently, it isnt a problem for us to freeze. All of these problems can relate adventure to the fact that Oxbow has no power against the bureau offices in Regina and Weyburn.We are not able to decide the climate of our classrooms, who has access to use our internet or even who is allowed put a screw in the rampart to hang a picture. We are by no means, allowed to. A government office in that is 150-250 kilometers away makes the decision of what is and is not allowed. People who have no estimate what goes on in our school, who attends or plant life there, what we are like or even where Oxbow is, has that discretion. Yes, our old schools had a very large laundry list plumbing, heating, electrical and just overall renovating. This article is not coterie out to complain about our new school.We were in much need of a new facility and are greatly appreciative for the effort, time and unverbalized work that were pput into building it. But, with that said, I find it hard to comprehend how certain, seemingly common palpate issues are ignored. The new school in Oxbow has heightened the schools many previous strengths such(prenominal) as atheletics, drama, acad emics and even the staff and students as individuals. This school also has its negative effects though. And it is the students that are being effected. The future depends on them. So why does it have to be such a struggle to give them a proper learning environment? Teagan Loppe