Students need the best facility we can provide

My parents chose to move to Rockville Centre because of its reputable school system and its strong sense of community. To protect and to perpetuate our long tradition of providing an excellent education, we must adapt our school to better meet 21st century learning needs and safety standards. The structural and security problems facing South Side High School affect every student’s learning experience. The temporary solutions and quick fixes of the past can no longer provide the best educational experience for our students.

Most every student at South Side takes a science class at one point in their high school career. With the growing popularity of the International Baccalaureate science program and with the vast majority of our students pursuing Regents diplomas, there is a high student demand for more laboratory science classes. To meet these demands, South Side only has five true full-sized labs that have a combined space for lecture and lab activity. Because there are more science students than suitable labs, students are forced to have their classes in regular classrooms that were converted to “labs.” Due to space constrictions, the lab tables in these rooms were placed around the perimeter of the classroom. This means that when we do our labs, our backs are faced to the teacher, making it hard to supervise or to guide us. This set-up prevents us from taking part in the explorative hands-on learning and experimentation that is the core of a laboratory science.

So,in some classes, (Living Environment Earth Science) we have no other choice but to do mostly paper labs or to watch the teacher as he/she does the experiments themselves as a demonstration, while telling us what we should have seen happen if we were to do the lab ourselves.These options are both boring and insufficient in providing students the best independent and cooperative learning experience. Real lab experiences are vital for providing us with inspiring learning experiences that could further ignite a passion for science and a curiosity for the world around us.