News 3 examined the data from Robert M. LaFolette High School on Tuesday night. The school is the smallest of the four schools included in this series, boasting more than 1,700 students.
During a typical afternoon at LaFollette High School, principal Mike Meissen walks the halls.
If it’s going on at LaFollette, Meissen knows about it. He uses a new technology that all four Madison principals have this year — a palm pilot. Meissen can access a list of LaFollette’s 1,748 students along with their pictures and class schedules. They tell him where they should be at all times.
Assistant Principal Mikki Smith is in her first year as one of his top assistants and she said that he has a reputation for maintaining order at the school.
“Mike is known for running a pretty tight ship,” Smith said. “He has high expectations for students and he makes that known.”
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Yes, there’s increased order at La Follette, but at what cost? The school seems to be in perpetual lock-down: we can’t be in the halls outside of passing periods (teachers get in trouble for giving us passes), we’re not allowed in the Pit or the aud or even the library much of the time. The hall monitors are mean, as are the 3:50 annoncements kicking us out of the building a mere 15 minutes after the end of classes. The place feels like a prison where the students are expected to act like machines marching from class to class on a tight schedule. There is nothing personal in La Follette anymore, nothing to suggest that we, the students, are people. We have no personal space to hang out and be kids because the administration has no faith in us. Is this orderliness really worth the lost sense of community?