Damnit Shayna stole my crappy David Bowie reference

At this point, skimming a few other peoples' posts, it seems like originality is going to be a problem here. I don't drive to school, so I can't say anything about parking (though the stories I have heard indicate something must be wrong), and I definitely don't want to get into anything about the educational system in general. Instead I'll just throw a few things out there and hope the topic hasn't already been beaten to death.

1) Restrooms- this really applies to public restrooms in general. Luckily my bladder has adapted to eliminate the need to use any public restroom, but for those less fortunate, every trip is surely a hellish nightmare. From the stories I've heard, there's constantly drug deals, broken fixtures, and smoking going on, and it's usually a combination of at least 2. The (thankfully) only time I've ever been in one of the school restrooms there was smoke blown in my face, immediately after which a teacher walked in, who I guess didn't smell anything. Maybe if they had another method of detecting it, one that's a bit harder to get around than just putting a lighter underneath the sink, the air in those God-forsaken places might actually be breathable.

2) Crowded hallways- everyone knows Henry Clay is overpopulated; the portables are proof enough. But there's gotta be some way to stop people from STANDING IN THE EXACT CENTER OF THE 4-WAY INTERSECTION TO TALK. This place is going to give me an ulcer soon, and bumping into people in the hallway because they just don't care about simple human decency will be the main cause. Can't we just hire somebody to scream at them a bunch? Lee Ermey? Can we afford him? Because when I get pushed forward because there's literally an entire solid string of people blocking the entire width of the hallway, my mind drifts to some, uh, negative places. And that's just unnecessary.

3) The announcements- the announcements suck, no teacher ever plays them in his/her classroom, and I hope we don't waste any money on them. Judging from the quality of the video, I'd say we don't, so I guess everything's fine. But they're just a waste of time if nobody gets to watch them. There are plenty of things that go on in the school that I don't hear anything about until the last minute, or even after the fact. Maybe some good announcements that I can actually view, with my eyeballs, could help.