Written by: Izzy Bellville '12
“You know you can’t do that. It’s in the student handbook.”
The student handbook is an almost legendary artifact, making many appearances in teacher’s lectures against this offense or that one, but almost never making a real appearance in a student’s hands. How many students have actually read the handbook, or know what rules it contains?
When asked whether or not it was real, a teacher just happened to have a copy of the mystic text in his desk. The sheer size of it makes it known why it is the student hand “book” and not student pamphlet.
It was simple in show, boasting only a pink cover, a single staple in the top left corner, and then just the pages within. When flipping through the holy texts, it is too overwhelming to actually read what it states, but rest assured, it is full of all the legalese that our teachers promise us.
“It’s on the website, if you want to download it.” a teacher explained, before he took back his copy of the student scriptures.
It can be downloaded, but you may have to take some time to find it.
If you actually read through all 23 pages, you may find many, many rules that you were totally unaware of.
A quiz was made to see just how well the students here at ERHS know the handbook rules, and was distributed to five students from each graduating class.
The averages for each class were:
Seniors: 24%
Juniors: 22%
Sophomores: Failed to give turn in all five quizzes, so they get no score.
Freshmen 22%
The high score for the quiz was a 50%, achieved by a freshman and a senior. The low score was a 0%, achieved by a junior.
These questions were not hard. They were simple, and anyone who has read the student handbook would have easily received a B on the quiz. So it can easily be assumed that no one who took the quiz has read the handbook.
“I definitely think that all students should read (the handbook)” Said Mrs. Allison.
But the fact that we have or have not read the handbook does not necessarily affect our behavior negatively. Our school is still a safe and respectful place, and not reading the handbook isn’t going to change that.
