Eaglecrest High School consists of numerous hallways to help students travel from class to class, except, it’s no easy task. Due to the student body consisting of over 3000 students, the hallways tend to be crowded during passing periods. This hallway traffic can obstruct students from getting to their classes on time, which can result in unwanted tardies. 

During the beginning months of school, hallway traffic can cause the most problems to students that are new to Eaglecrest. This is because newer students are less familiar with where their classes are located, and the traffic gives them less time to navigate the school. All students only get seven minutes to get from class to class during passing periods. Seven minutes should be enough time for all students to find their classes, but a lot of that time is spent in crowded hallways. Since teachers aren’t allowed to let their students out of class early, there isn’t really any way to gain more than the allotted time to get from class to class.

Despite hallway traffic being mostly inevitable, there are certain ways that you can make it easier to get from class to class on time. 

One helpful method is to utilize the map in your EHS student planner to become familiar with the locations of your classes. The map is located on pages 6-8 of your student planner, and shows a layout of the school with each classroom labeled with its corresponding classroom number. Annotating the map, such as highlighting certain classroom numbers that you have, and writing the period you have that class for beside it is extremely helpful. This method doesn’t help you completely dodge hallway traffic itself, but it can help ease the effects of hallway traffic. For example, you might wait for three minutes in a crowded hallway before you realize that you’re on the opposite side of the building than your next class. This method is most effective for new students, such as freshmen, who aren’t familiar with the layout of the building.

Another helpful method is to utilize your off period. Off periods are class periods where students don’t have class. During this period, students can go to the library and complete schoolwork, walk around the school, go home, or pretty much do anything that follows the school rules. So, how can your off period help you avoid hallway traffic? Here’s how: Since you are allowed to traverse the hallways during your off period, you can arrive at your next period right before the bell rings. This way, you are already at your next period before the hallways become crowded.

Not everybody has an off period, but everybody has a lunch period. Lunch periods can be very helpful when it comes to avoiding hallway traffic. At the end of every lunch period, students can enter the area where the hallways meet the cafeteria entrance, but they cannot enter the hallways until the passing period begins. Since students can wait in the allowed area, the students who wait there can be the first to enter the hallways, and can be ahead of the hallway traffic.

Lastly, there are smaller outdoor hallways that connect the crowded hallways, also known as breezeways, that students can pass through to save time. They are the hallways located between the East and West hallways that come through where the attendance office and deans’ offices are located.

“Whenever I go from downstairs to upstairs, I use the staircases,” said freshman Arman Patrosyan.  “And by the end of the day, the hallways are extremely crowded”.

Using the staircases is essential because it saves a lot of time during passing periods. 

Casen Rauen, another freshman at Eaglecrest, stated “I used the outside walkways,” said freshman Casen Rauen.  “The hallways are pretty crowded”.

The outside walkways (breezeways) are very helpful when you have to cross from one side of the building to the other. 

“Like an eight out of ten,” said freshman Casen Rauen, when asked how crowded the halls get on a scale of 1 to 10.  (1- Not crowded at all, 10- Impossible to pass through).

Overall, hallway traffic is a nuisance for all students, and everyone gets stuck in the traffic all the time. Having helpful methods and plans to avoid the traffic is critical for avoiding unwanted tardies. If you want, you can even develop your own methods at avoiding hallway traffic that further benefits your schedule!