After seeing a spike in behavioral punishments, assistant principal Jason Harris took to the intercom during second period on Monday to make a schoolwide announcement regarding the topic.

“We’ve had an increase in the students misbehaving from just consistent misbehavior to just doing some things that they shouldn’t be doing on campus, which has caused us to see an increase in ISS, OSS, and SOC placement,” Harris said. “That announcement today was just a warning, we don’t want you guys to do something these last 11 days of school that will cause you to get put in ISS, OSS, or SOC and start your school year over at SOC.”

As part of this, the staff will try to create a more optimum learning environment by enforcing several rules; from sending only one person to the restroom at a time from each class, to not allowing students to eat lunch in the rotunda.

“We just want you guys to make wise decisions,” Harris said. “So we just wanna let you guys know, we’re on top of it, we’re noticing the behavior with some of our students, not a lot, but a few and that can cause a disruption for the whole learning environment, to that was the whole purpose behind the announcement.”

For senior Vijay Jain, the announcement served as a warning to students to be mindful with their actions.

“If it is to address the issues, it is certainly one way to go,” Jain said. “I’m not sure if it’s going to affect it, but I guess it’s certainly a good idea to let students know that it’s going to be less tolerated so that when you do hand out appropriate punishments there’s not as much backlash to it.”

Harris ultimately hopes students stay on task for the remainder of the year leading up to a summer in which they can relax.

“The purpose of the announcement was for kids to know that the Liberty staff is on alert, there’s teachers that are going to be highly visible, administration that are going to be highly visible throughout the school, throughout the day, during transition time, during advisory, during lunch time and to let them know to make wise decisions,” Harris said. “Be careful what you do at school, you have 11 days left, take care of your academics and after at the end of the eleventh day, it’s the summertime, you get to have fun, and enjoy that, and relax.”