It’s after lunch at the iSchool, and the hallways are filled with excitement. Friends hugging before their departure to their next class, couples secretly chatting in the corner, people yelling, laughing, and there’s always that one group of friends that seem to take up the entire hallway.

With all this commotion, it’s hard to walk through the halls in our tiny school, but for the iSchool population, there are 3 main hallways that people believe are the “worst.”

The hallways are the hallway between Ms. LaPlante (507) and Mr. Jones’s (505w) classrooms, the 4th-floor hallway by the girl’s bathroom, or the hallway near 403 (the Spanish classroom).

Survey results from the iSchool students

One anonymous junior stated, “There isn’t enough room for people to wait outside the rooms and walk through the hallways,” when talking about the hallway between 507 and 505w.

Both Ms. LaPlante and Mr. Jones teach mostly freshman, with the exception of AP Language and Composition (an upperclassmen class). It also doesn’t make it any easier than the entrance to the Commons is right next door to the college office. This area is bound to have traffic.

When told that her hallway area was voted the top “worst” hallway, LaPlante was not surprised.

“I typically stay in my room, but I know everyone is trying to get by and given that I teach every single period, I’m trying to get kids out from the previous class and then bring in kids from the next class. I know it a cluster out there.”

Ms. LaPlante has made attempts to make transition time easier, but her attempts haven’t had much success.

“The thing I try to ask the kids to do is just to stand against the wall. Which is exactly what does not happen they tend to clump up in groups of three or four completely blocking the middle of the hall.”

Despite the tiny halls, Ms. LaPlante believes that there’s a way for a transition to be easier: “There’s plenty of room on the side of the hall if every kid just stood against the wall when they were waiting to come in then it [the transition] would be much smoother.”

The second most-voted hall is the hall by the 4th-floor girl’s bathroom. It is the main hall in the school; the main staircase everyone uses is there and that bathroom is the one that most girl’s use if they don’t use the gender-neutral one.

This hall is more spacious than most, but it can get crowded really fast.

One anonymous sophomore commented on this hall saying: “People just stand there and chat as if we don’t have places to be.”

Many groups of friends are prone to standing in the surrounding area not aware of the people trying to get through.

Junior Joseph Kallan could relate to this sophomore’s frustration. He felt like both the size of the school and the people contribute to the congestion near the bathroom.

“I get the fact that people wanna stop and they wanna talk to their friends and everything and I know that our hallways aren’t exactly huge but I just think that people need to be more aware.”

Awareness is key to walking in the halls; standing in the middle of the hall or just not paying attention while you’re walking can add unnecessary frustration.

“There’s nothing that can really be changed [about the school]. I think people need to just be aware because people are trying to get to class. If you wanna talk to your friend just talk to them to the side or just wait,” said Kallan.

The last most-voted hallway was the one by the Spanish classroom(403). Since a lot more people take Spanish, it makes sense that this hallway can sometimes get a bit congested.

“People always seem to just group up in that corner making it impossible to get by,” one junior said.

A freshman however made a good point about the location of the Spanish classrooms. They felt like it was too far away from the main one.

“To travel down the 4th floor and encounter more crowdedness can be a lot. I know it’s impossible, but if Spanish was further down, it would be easier to travel through the halls.”

Overall, however, this hall didn’t seem to get much hate in comparison to the others- despite some sophomores that felt that this hallway is “boring” and “doesn’t have enough natural light.”

Two people, a freshman, and a junior said all the hallways were bad. The freshman wrote: “All of the hallways are always cluttered during transitioning of classes and people push by others and…don’t say excuse me. This can- and I’m pretty sure it has- caused a lot of students to be late [to class].”

This is an unfortunate truth; there are moments in time when the sea of people gets so bad you just end up drowning in them.

The junior felt as if the congestion was primarily due to the way the underclassmen act in the halls writing:

“The freshman and the sophomores just talking in the middle of the hallway like there isn’t anyone else trying to get by, it’s so annoying…It’s like the freshmen and sophomores have no common sense like I understand that things come up, but you can talk at lunch or text each other?”

Might seem a bit harsh, but it’s the harsh truth. One freshman said that the hallway between 507 and 505w is the worst because “[it] is the most crowded and more teachers pass by that one, so I can’t act foolish and curse like I always do.”

All they’re proving is that underclassmen can make the halls more of a hell than they already can be.

Overall, hallway congestion in schools is a common problem, no matter how big or small the school is.

To solve this problem, hallway manners are key. If you wanna talk to your friend or friends, move off to the side and don’t group up in the middle of the hall. Texting? Maybe don’t. Or if you can, move to the side. Say excuse me when trying to get by, it really doesn’t hurt to be a little polite (especially when dealing with hall traffic).

No matter what, we have to deal with these halls even if they are just the worst. But one day, who knows, maybe everyone will finally learn to be civilized in the halls.