No Trust, No Citizenship

As an editor of TCS for The Discoverer, I detected a problem with the entrance regulations of the school and agreed with my teacher and co-reporter that interviewing TCS’ Porteros would be an excellent source for this paper. On my way there at 2:50 P.M on a Friday I ran into four men in charge of regulating the entrance of cars into the school. Two of them stopped me and started calling via walkie-talkie Mr. Roger Arbabi, high school principal, telling him in an altered tone ‘We got two high school students trying to reach the exit of school, help!” Threats started to reach me such as I heard, “Don’t even try to pass the door,” they told me, “we will catch you on camera.” At that moment I started realizing about the enormous lack of trustworthiness the school has over students.

Every school has specific policies that have to be followed, in order to prevent a tragedy from happening. But don’t you think that after fourteen years of being at the school, students are prepared to make their own decisions? Don’t you think that the regulations from a kindergarten student should be different from a Senior year one? Without a doubt, TCS has expressed trust issues towards students throughout their entering and exiting school regulation, and they still don’t believe that students are capable of expressing ideal citizenship.

Students have explained that due to the school’s regulation, that prohibits them from trespassing school grounds in their automobiles, they are driving to school, parking outside, and getting someone (stranger or acquaintance) to drive them to school. “The students that drive to school, are over sixteen, this is an age in which there should be enough maturity to take decisions if there has been a great education,” explained Mar Navarro TCS’ Junior. “Everything will be much easier if we could park and enter to the school walking. If we are the outstanding individuals the school claims us to be, we should be responsible enough to walk 100 meters by ourselves.” As Navarro explained, the school should start trusting in their high school students, as there will never exist a feeling of independence if the school keeps treating them with the same policies they did when they first entered Kindergarten.

“Our main goal as educators, is to contribute to the positive formation of students, with transparency, honesty, and clarity,” explained Maria Victoria Jaramillo, TCS High School’s Vice Principal. If TCS is selling the idea in their Mision about how they are creating outstanding individuals, they should first believe it. And by believing it, I mean they should start proving with their actions that they trust in their young adult students, and that one year from graduating, they already are “responsible individuals” as promised in their mission statement. “These policies emerged as a preventive road safety issue,” explained Ana Isabel Garcia, TCS High School’s counselor. “This is a way to prevent that coming to school puts yourself at risk in terms of traffic security.” Authoritative explanations about this policies are contradicting the School’s mission, as they are stating that none of the school’s students are mature enough to be a responsible citizen.

TCS should consider flexibility concerning their school entrance policy for High School students, or at least for Seniors. The first step towards maturity is being a good citizen by yourself. Parents have trusted the school to give their children the best education, and this includes taking security measurements; but as TCS Junior year Jose Manuel Uribe questioned, “Isn’t more dangerous to ride a stranger’s car in order to enter to school, than walking about 100 meters by ourselves?” Wise choices following their mission should start being negotiated by directives and their older students to reach safety and flexible policies. “I just feel the school has a lot of trust issues towards students,” claimed Navarro. To become a united school, directives should start creating plans to avoid students from having all these negative thoughts, and this change starts with policy flexibility.