By Ariana Martinez

At McCaskey High School, everyone has already noticed all the new TVs placed in teachers’ classrooms and others lingering in the halls on the walls. For the TVs in the classrooms, most would agree that the teachers’ classrooms needed an upgrade from their aged projectors, but what about the hallway TVs? These TVs started appearing in September of 2023.

What are the hallway TVs used for exactly? This question has caused talk amongst students. Having the students question if the school has wasted money on TVs that aren’t truly paid attention to or if the TVs are helping students stay informed. The TVs are displayed to give students a visual of important reminders of dates and events coming up. But aren’t there other ways of sharing this information that are just as efficient? Also, people have witnessed movies being displayed on the TVs, causing students to ask, are TVs getting put to good use? 

 I talked to Anastasia Romanoff, an eleventh-grade McCaskey student who said “I think they are a bit of a waste, because I don’t really see them being used, it’s just weather and photos that come up.” She also told me: “No one pays attention to them, so what’s the point of so many of them.”                             

Another question that students and teachers may have is, how were the TVs acquired? Most people think the school paid for them, but maybe they were a donation. I talked to Sam Kochenberger, who works with the Audio and Visual department of the school district of Lancaster, to get insight. He had said “The TVs were not donated, the High school invested their own funds for the new technology.”

Mr. Kochenberger also talked about why the TVs were put up. They are to “inform students regarding important events and dates, as well as allow students to take pride in some of the work they have accomplished.”  

 Some teachers and students would say the hallway TVs are a great way to make sure they’re caught up with news within the school. Some say there are many other things the money could’ve gone to. Lina Leon, an eleventh-grade McCaskey student said “Why focus on things that have other alternatives, when we could focus on things like the bathrooms, that have broken locks.”

Students have numerous complaints about things that have yet to be solved or fixed. Such as the restroom problems: clogged toilets and gushing sinks. They’ve talked about better security for the amount of weapons making their way into the school. So shouldn’t we be focusing on more important things? 

I talked to Mrs.Brumbach, a communications teacher in McCaskey who said “I absolutely love them because I never had a smart board so for me it’s like finally having a smart board and I absolutely love it.  It’s a lot easier to use because the pens you can use on it, I like that it’s really easy to connect to my computer.” she said. “The only issue with it is sometimes the WiFi but I asked IT to come fix it and they hard wired it for me so now I have no problem”. 

The hallway TVs do a good job of being informative. Some people I spoke with have learned about different clubs and activities from them. However, students do have some problems with the amount of time each piece of information is presented. No one can truly take away much from the information due to the rapid change of the screen. 

A McCaskey student proposed the idea of having different pieces of information on each screen for longer amounts of time. This way students can actually absorb the information, making better use of the hallway TVs.