Claire’s Corner: executive editorial page editor Claire Clements spills the tea on the latest happenings in the world, ranging from pop culture to politics.

A Coppell High School Red Jacket speaks over the intercom during third and seventh period, following the pledges. 

“Make sure to check the CHS website for announcements. Have a great day, CHS!” 

You would think after hearing this daily, students would check the website. However, according to a Sidekick Instagram poll, out of 103 votes, only three said they actually check the website. If this accurately reflects the student population, that means roughly 97% of students do not look at the website for any announcements they may need to know.

Alongside that, when you actually do look at the CHS announcements page, it’s several pages long. It’s easy for information to get lost and, honestly, no one is going to want to look through 16 pages of information.   

A more effective way of giving out important information students may need is reintroducing announcements over the intercom. It’s not a new concept – CHS used to do it. 

“One of the concerns is just the time of the day to get that done, but if it’s something we could do that would be concise, maybe a quick five-minute segment, that would be something that would be beneficial so kids could hear things that were important information,” CHS assistant principal Aylor Rix said. 

The thing is, CHS is actually one of few schools that does not  have some type of announcements, whether it’s just over the intercom or in video format. At Coppell Middle School East, it has video announcements, with students in the media program. At CHS9, members of the student council sign up to do announcements over the intercom. 

I know there are a variety of things that are happening daily that could be mentioned in the announcements, such as upcoming sports games, or the release of the latest school newspaper. There’s also a lot of important information that goes on, such as information on red or gold lunch or when #Adulting Day is happening. These are typically brought up by CHS associate principal Sean Bagley, but if we’re already having someone come over the announcements and say things, why not just do it daily? 

Some think it would take too much time. Currently, the pledges take place at 2:20 p.m., and they usually only take a minute or two at most. If you move back the pledges and announcements to 2:15 p.m., taking at most five minutes, then students would still have an extra five minutes before the end of class to finish up assignments or pack up. 

The process would be similar to the way we do pledges now; either before or after the pledges, the Red Jackets would read from a paper that just said two or three events coming up in school. If a club or teacher is hosting something, such as a party or event, they could submit a request for an announcement. Not only is this helping students and teachers actually know what’s going on at school on a timely basis, but it would give these organizations an outlet for certain events. 

Announcements over the intercom should be brought back, but until then, if you need to know what’s happening around school on a timely basis, make sure to continue reading coppellstudentmedia.com. 

Follow Claire (@cclements825) and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.