Lately our school has undergone numerous changes to security. Whether that comes from new gates, doors being locked, and soon even lanyards and keycards will be introduced.

All of this is due to the tragedy that occurred in a school in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman was able to just walk into a school without any passes or notice. After it occurred, Texas passed laws to bring in higher school security across the state.

TWHS students here are currently experiencing these upgrades for the first time. For many, it is something that they want, and others feel it is something that disrupts our regular schedules.

For me I find this school security to be a nuisance, but a necessary nuisance in some cases for our safety.

I, along with other TWHS students, find the gates to be extremely in the way for many activities and classes.

The gates prevent me and numerous athletics students from getting into the building in any quick or easy manner. I for one go into the JROTC lounge in the morning, but because of these new gates I can’t walk right into the side doors anymore.

As for the athletic students, they need to get to the locker rooms early so they can be ready to go in the morning.

This brings up another point: most of our doors themselves are locked in the morning and throughout the day, keeping not just potential school shooters out, but TWHS students as well.

I get out of the car line in front of the front office. You’d think that due to the fact that we have a cop standing right outside the line that we could just walk into the main entrance doors, right? Well not exactly.

Students are only allowed to get in the side doors next to the stairs, or the doors in the parking lot next to the soccer field.

So many students have to get through those doors. Whether that be car riders, bus riders, or students who drive themselves. There is just one teacher holding it open for us all in the front of the school.

Not only are we supposed to wait for teachers to open our doors, but we’ll have to start using passes to scan ourselves in.

I actually do like this idea, but I have some grievances with it. Such as the amount of students that will probably forget their passes.

If I forget my pass, I’m going to have to drive all the way back to my house which is two fifteen minute drives there and back to school. Imagine being a student that lives in Conroe or Magnolia and having to drive all the way back.

Forget driving back, who is supposed to stop students from letting other students who forgot their passes in? Surely the teachers and APs can’t keep up with all of them.

However, think of it like this: what if the potential shooter is another student?

Not to accuse TWHS students as being capable of doing such things, but plenty of other schools had cases where a student was a shooter.

If everyone has a pass, and the shooter ends up being a student, is anything really going to be prevented?

Same with the gates, if we have everyone locked inside the school during a shooting and the shooter is a student, then we’re locked in here with them.

This goes for fires too. If we have one, people may have to wait to be let out by APs at the gate. Eventually students will just start jumping gates. Even in the morning, many impatient students will do the same.

With all of this being said, the intentions of school security is clearly out of the good of the state and the school’s heart. However, there seems to be holes or just ineffective parts of the security upgrades that interrupt the lives of many TWHS students.

Let us just hope that the school continues to improve on the implemented security for the betterment of our safety and security.