The McNary High School campus will be closing for freshmen and sophomore students by Feb. 5, due to disciplinary issues occurring off campus during lunch.
Partnering with the Keizer Police Department, McNary High School will require a permission slip for sophomores who meet certain criteria to leave campus.
The criteria for sophomores wanting to leave campus includes meeting attendance and behavior standards as well as having a permission slip signed by a parent or legal guardian.
All students eligible to leave campus, 11th, 12th and 10th graders with permission, will be required to show ID before leaving campus.
Freshmen students are not eliglible to leave campus nor get permission to during lunch.
Students who misplace or lose their school ID will have to pay $5 for a replacement.
The issues came after the high school made changes to the lunch period, making it a single period for all students as well as making the campus open for students during lunch.
On Jan. 23, an official student announcement was made during the students advisory period, though McNary principal Scott Gragg noted that, ideally, this will not be the first time students are learning of the changes.
Safety and Behavior teams will be created and assigned to different exits at the school to check the IDs for students and ensure those who aren’t juniors, seniors or sophomores without a permission slip do not leave campus.
These teams are composed of staff already working at the school, namely the campus safety monitors, whose primary role will be ensuring supervision during lunchtime as well as keeping a log of who leaves and when.
The behavior portion of the new teams will be composed of behavior specialists employed by the school as well as be aided by other student services and support staff whose primary goal will be to increase the amount of adult supervision.
Students that do not adhere to these new rules or are discovered to have left campus will have a “progressive consequence process,” according to community conversations on the matter.
This process involves a series of nuanced consequences for students involving time in self center classes for those who leave without permission up to revoking a student’s right to leave campus.
Students are not the only ones affected by the changes though as teachers are as well.
Due to the anticipated increase in the number of students present on campus, teachers who allow students into classrooms are required to remain there as well for supervision though if the teacher needs to leave the room, the students must as well.
McNary School principal Scott Gragg described how, including student safety, these changes are occurring due to the increase in the number of students who are tardy or have an unexcused absence directly after lunch.
Gragg mentioned how in some cases there are events or other occurrences off campus that draw large groups of students to them and, in these cases, it is difficult for school staff to manage and ensure the safety of students.
Gragg noted that while healthy school food options are mandated by Oregon state, the issue they will need to overcome is how quickly they can feed the entire school within the 35-minute lunch period.
Gragg also described how school faculty was supportive of the changes and, according to Gragg, there had been relatively few questions and comments from teachers in regards to the changes.
Contact Quinn Stoddard
[email protected] or 503-390-105
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