Around the first week of December, a glass wall and doors had been installed in the hallway of the administration building, with administration touting it as a security upgrade.

Unfortunately it’s all just “security theatre.” There are still unprotected entrances onto campus. The glass wall is not solving any major security issue. Campus is still open to unwanted visitors through the alley on Campo Street and entrances by the 900s.

The glass wall becomes not just a hassle for the students who want to visit their counselors, but also an unneeded struggle for those working in the office. Having to constantly buzz people in through the doors can make their already busy jobs even busier.

Instead of fixing the maintenance problems RHS has, we’ve constructed a roadblock. Funding should be focused on fixing the chronic campus maintenance issues that RHS faces.

We still have uneven sidewalks, rusting lockers, outdated bathrooms, puddles the size of parking lots and flooded walkways. The time, money and energy spent on the door could also be used to fix these greater issues and help students live out their school day without fear of tripping into a pool of rainwater.

Poor drainage at RHS is an issue that can be fixed, should be fixed and needs to be fixed.

People trip nearly daily on the uneven sidewalks in the hallways of RHS – dropping their lunch or backpacks and cracking their phones – and it often makes a bad day a lot worse.

Other high schools in the district – like Woodcreek or Granite Bay – have clean, smooth sidewalks and fresh coats of paint almost every year and give the students a reason to have pride in their school.

It’s difficult for students to have pride in a school whose staff don’t even have pride in it.

It’s true those schools are much newer, and therefore have not had the time to deteriorate like RHS, but this doesn’t give Roseville a reason to be neglected. If maintenance was kept up with this school it could be just as aesthetically pleasing and functioning as Woodcreek or Granite Bay.

Just because Roseville is the oldest school in the district doesn’t mean we can’t improve certain aspects of it.

You don’t have to demolish the whole school and start from scratch, but we shouldn’t have to settle simply because we’re used to it. Roseville High School is not a lost cause. Fix the issues it already has before creating new ones.

For example, around Spring of 2018, construction started on improving the bathroom by the 500’s and when returning from summer break it was finished. The renovation made a huge difference for students. With bright orange and black colors, it makes the school not look so gloomy. However, the second you walk out of the bathrooms it seems as if you stepped into a whole different world.

Meanwhile the bathrooms nearest the pool are actually repulsive, and if I need to go to the bathroom, I would rather walk farther out of my way and risk getting a tardy just to be in a cleaner bathroom.

We should put the focus and money the district used on the door to adding a fresh coat of paint in the 400-700’s or painting the bland, gray, stale lockers orange or possibly even fixing the sidewalks.

This would cause a very positive change in the atmosphere at Roseville High School.

I and many other students would feel much better about Roseville and have a better morale when it comes to going to school.

Rather than spend time on implementing additional useless “add-ons” to the school while our campus is deteriorating further daily, we could fix and update RHS to the standards other schools in the district are held at.