Many would rather be caught up in Route 7 traffic than the congestion that occurs in the halls of Woodgrove. Slow walkers have become the dreaded traffic the high school students face. It is a common frustration that happens around campus on a daily basis. Many students feel this is a recurring problem that causes people to slow down and an annoying one at that. Students most of the time do not know that they are slowing down large groups of people from getting to their own classes behind them, risking themselves having a target on their backs. A majority of people are tired in school and take their dandy old time to get to their next class. After asking multiple kids how they feel, they all agreed with this statement. 

A diversity of students feel strongly about this hallway transition, including Nolan Hamilton. Describing what slow walkers mean to him, he gave a very frustrated response, stating, “Slow walkers are people walking slowly in the hallway. I’m trying to get somewhere so I say they just gotta keep it pushing.” Freshman Lily Peterson agreed, saying, “It makes me mad, angry and furious.” In addition, when asked if it ever makes her late to class, her response was, “Yes, they are very annoying, and I constantly have to ask for them to speed up.” Agreeing with her, Hamilton said, “All the time, students are walking slow with their friends and I can’t even get by.”

At Woodgrove, we have a wide variety of teachers who move from class to class just like students, including Special Ed teachers, assistant teachers, and ISR supervisors. One of these teachers is Special Education Department Chair Samantha Newbold. Just like students, she struggles to get by due to slow walkers. Newbold shares, “I understand that students want time to socialize with their friends and it’s a good opportunity to do so. That being said, I can recognize it causes congestion in the hallways.” As an adult who has many years of experience with traffic in the hallways, one might assume she has a resolution. She states,“Lanes of traffic. This may be a good idea as slow walkers can cause hold-ups at intersections or flow into the other sides of the hall.” Newbold has strong ideas as to how this problem could actually be resolved. Ideas to fix this issue of build up in the hallways can vary. We could take Newbold’s answer of lanes of traffic, but there are plenty others we could do, such as monitored hallways, certain halls you can go down depending on where you are going, or hallway groups. You can picture those ideas as you like.

Large quantities of people walk around the halls every single day. We have nearly 1,600 students in this building, not including staff. We are bound to have it get cramped up. Slow walkers are a legitimate yet funny sounding problem. It causes people’s moods to fall, increases tardies and traffic, and jeopardizes the ability to maintain a good reputation for behavior in the halls. If you are admittedly a slow walker reading this, just remember that Abraham Lincoln once said, “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” Despite that, don’t forget you still make everyone late to class.