FLORENCE, SC (WBTW) – The Florence School District One student facilities committee met to discuss the needs of West Florence High School on Thursday.
The committee, made up of students from Wilson High School, West Florence High School, and South Florence High School, walked the halls of West Florence for an hour.
They said their three main concerns were the schools overcrowding issue, the building being out-of-date, and safety.
Senior at West Florence, Rachel Freeman, said she sometimes worries about people walking into the building.
“It would be impossible to keep an intruder out,” she said. “We have no way to keep people out and we can’t lock any of our doors because we have students who are going from mobiles to different buildings to the gym,” she continued. “We have so many safety hazards here and I don’t know how we could prevent it if someone were to try to get onto this school and hurt students.”
Junior at West Florence, Reagan Dunnam, agreed.
“Safety is my biggest concern,” she said. “We have sixty-eight entry points that cannot be locked because of the open-air hallways.”
The facilities committee said the open-air hallways are also a concern for them. They said anyone could easily fall over the side if it were too crowded.
Sophomore at West Florence, Kameron Foster, said he doesn’t think the school has enough space for the amount of students that go there.
“We don’t have enough room to accommodate students and we don’t have enough room to accommodate certain classes,” Foster said.
He said some of his teachers have to teach off of carts because they don’t have their own classrooms.
During the tour, the students pointed out what they believed to be problem areas in the hallways and classrooms.
“The carpets that have mold in them, some teachers are having to rip them up themselves, sand down the floors themselves, so that the students can walk on it,” said Dunnam.
Among some of the issues were cracks in classroom floors, water stains on ceilings, and a hole in the bottom of one of the mobile units outside.
“I want the people that are coming up after me to have an adequate learning environment,” said Freeman.
Sophomore at West Florence High School, Hanna Bidzan, said she wants to see the school improve its condition in the years to come.
“Generations and years from now, kids are going to be coming to this school, and it’s forty-seven-years-old, and it’s already in pretty poor condition.”
The students agreed that the committee was formed to create a better future for the next generation
“We probably won’t see the effects of this,” she said. ”This is for the students that come after us, because we want to build our community both educationally and economically to help further the people who come into this community.”
The student facilities committee will look at the needs of Wilson High School next.