In prior times, students were welcomed inside the warm school building during the frosty winter months while they were waiting for the school day to start. This year administration has closed its doors to students being dropped off before 8:15 a.m. unless they were coming for tutoring or test retakes. However, this hasn’t stopped students from making their way into the lobby.

Although students are unsupervised, the doors into the building are locked, and only faculty can get past them. The question on the minds of carpool students and parents is: Why do students have to stand outside in the cold?

Sommer Wynn, junior, is a regular carpooler who, like many others, doesn’t enjoy standing out in the cold. Wynn is among a few students who are earlier risers or are dropped off before school day begins. “By the time I get there everybody is usually congregating in the lobby,” Winn says. “It seems like everybody’s happier with that,” she said.

Rachel Brown, sophomore, feels that students being left outside, poses a safety hazard. “Safety should be number one. What if someone just came up to us and – you never know what could happen,” Brown said.

Another regular carpooler, Junior Ariel Carrares has expressed some concern about carpool arrangements in the morning. “I don’t feel like it’s fair to be forced outside,” she said. “We’ve always sat in the lobby and there’s never been a conflict. We’re still supervised,” Carrares said. “I feel like I’m being treated unfairly. They [the administration] talk down to us because we come early, as if we ‘deserve’ to sit outside in the cold.”

Morning carpoolers face more than just morning woes. We should empathize with their daily struggle and work to change the policies that keep them out in the cold.