Many students have study halls throughout the day in the Library Media Center, and some students and faculty say problems are arising.

Elizabeth Lentz, the library assistant who supervises the study halls, feels that study halls should not be for socializing. “The biggest issues are when kids want to make their study hall a social time and talk with their friends and laugh and get up and move around,” she said.

Lentz supervises multiple study halls a day, each one with a different group of students who act differently. “I have one study hall that has over 60 kids in it, and even if kids talk quietly, when you have that many kids, the murmur gets louder and louder and it’s just not conducive to kids studying,” she said.

Mia Rapposelli, a junior in a sixth period library study hall, has had a few encounters with Lentz. Rapposelli said, “If I’m laughing [Lentz] tells me this is a place to study, not to laugh because we’re supposed to be studying, so no one gets disrupted.”

Junior Megan Brough is in Lentz’s fourth period study hall and her class has been banned from sitting in the lower section of the library. “I think [the students] are now all just placed into one spot in the library and we get louder like that,” she said.

During library study halls, the school implemented a Learning Lab where specific teachers will sit and help any student with the subject they teach. English teacher Alex Shaw was assigned to Learning Lab during Lentz’s fourth period study hall.

Shaw said, “I agree with all of Mrs. Lentz rules. I think everything that she’s doing is good …The rules have to be the way they are here, but I do feel bad for the kids that need something different.”

Rapposelli feels that since it is a library there are already restrictions as to what one can do. She said, “It’s a library so you’re supposed to be quiet so that rule is already there. You just know when you step into a library, you know you have to be quiet.”

Lentz thinks that the library space should be used for reading, research, and studying. “If it were me I would want to get my work done so I didn’t have homework later at home, or it would be an opportunity to study for a test that’s coming up later in the day,” she said.

However, years ago Shaw was given the opportunity to shadow a student for a whole day, and at the end of the day Shaw admits she understood why students don’t always use study halls for studying. Shaw said, “Normally I’d think I’d want to get my homework done but I spent all day following a kid around… [but by their study hall] I was dead. I actually really don’t think that it’s fair to expect kids to work all the time anymore; I think that you should be able to use it how you need it.”

Overall, Lentz feels that everyone should just be more respectful to one another in the library. She said, “If some kids looked around and saw that other kids are trying to read and study, they should be respectful and quiet down and realize that they might want to have fun, but at somebody else’s expense.”

Shaw thinks that the study hall system in general should be more flexible and allow for students to do what they feel is necessary. “I think the way we mess up with study halls is that it shouldn’t just be dumping everyone into the same place… [we talked about] possibly giving kids other opportunities to do other stuff, so that you have the opportunity in case you wanted to do other stuff like sit down and have a quiet environment, but for the kids who wanted to do more they could go and shoot hoops in the gym and do stuff,” Shaw said.

Similarly, Brough thinks that those who misbehave should be separated from those who are following the rules. She said, “[We should] have people that respect the place be allowed in that study hall.”

Overall, Lentz, Rapposelli, Brough, and Shaw all believe that in order for library study halls to have a better environment, there needs to be more respect. Shaw said, “There are kids who will break a rule and not even get noticed because they’re not being jerks; you take it for granted when you become a nuisance to everybody else. People think they’re the only ones that matter in here.”