
As someone who spends more time on campus than the average student, roughly 2.5 hours more, I speak from the heart when I make this complaint. The amount of outdoor, and even indoor seating on campus is severely lacking.
Time and time again I’ve found myself being forced to sit on curbs and planters much like most other students, or even on the hallway floor and grass. On the entire campus, there are only four actual benches for sitting outside.
Lunch seating is at least somewhat ample, with a decent amount of picnic tables, but the point still stands. Nearly half, or more than half I’d wager, of the students who go to lunch are left without anywhere to sit. Pair this with the fact we had a period of time with no meal trays, and it’s a wonder why nothing was burnt down.
Just building more seating areas or benches around campus would be such a quality-of-life improvement. Not to mention a much more simple and inexpensive process than most projects the district could do, if not all. I would hope eventually the endemic of having to squat or lean or sit on places not designed for comfort at all, will be cured in the simple manner of just getting good benches.
In the matter of price point, a simple bench made for schools and parks is in the price range of 600-1100 dollars, which considering the budget of the RUSD district, is pocket change. Just being able to take a quick breather between classes on a nice bench or sitting around during lunch would be a decent improvement in energy for students. Standing, walking, and running all the time with the weight of hours of average school busywork and your own sins surely isn’t great for the spine or mind. Plus, it’s not like staff wouldn’t be able to use them, and I’d imagine security guards and teachers in the midst of class and after-school errands would appreciate them as well.
There are a few points that can make the idea of more seating seem less appealing, but I feel the issues are minuscule at best. The most commonly argued is that more seating, indoors especially, would lead to a surplus of lollygagging in passing periods. This sort of argument has always seemed pointless, as people who want to be late to class will regardless of seating or not, and using that as an excuse not to make the campus more ergonomic is doing a disservice to everyone else on campus.
Rialto High School is already prison-like enough in its design, there’s no need to keep that standard. The path to a more comforting and altruistic campus starts simply with a good place to sit.
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