The start of the school year has brought concerns from parents and students alike, ranging from thirty-minute lines to get into the school to five hundred kids in a lunch to four-minute transition periods. Possibly, the bigger issue is that the administration is aware of these problems, and more needs to be done to fix them. On August 19th of this year, an email was sent from Dice principal Dr. James McCoy to the entire teaching staff. This email displays that Allderdice was set up for a staffing model meant for 1240 students and that over 1400 had been enrolled, with more coming in every day.

With some having to wait up to forty-five minutes to get through security and into class, Allderdice needed to find a solution. In the newsletter sent out by Dr. McCoy for the week of September 9, 2024, students learned that the administration had finally done something to try and fix the issue. Instead of having the front doors and a singular side entrance open, they added a new entrance in the cafeteria and decided to leave all entrances open for a longer period. With this new situation, there was now a better chance kids could make it to class on time. Although, the real question is: Why did it take them so long to handle this issue? With knowledge of the overcrowding issue dating back to August 19th, is the school's administration reliable when it comes to fixing important issues?

On September 9th, 2024, The Foreword put out an Instagram story asking Allderdice students, “Do you trust Allderdice’s administration to fix school issues, like overcrowding?”. Overall, one hundred and thirty-six of the total votes decided NO, with only fifteen voting YES. These results showed how students also realize the problems at Allderdice but don't even trust the administration to fix them.

Even though the issues at Allderdice keep growing, with more concern arising every day, the school is still trying out many new ideas as the year progresses. Since the new doors have been opened, lines have been becoming shorter, and students are getting to class on time. However, this plan isn't perfect and still leaves kids late for the first period. With teachers punishing students and even calling home for being late to class, many people are starting to wonder what happened to homerooms and why we are being rushed into our first classes so much earlier.

Early in the school year, a rumor spread around Allderdice, speculating that school attendance from the beginning of the day correlated with school funding. Students surmise that with homeroom being moved to lunch and the first period being earlier, students would be more inclined to show up early for class. This would then boost the attendance for the school days, giving the school more funding. However, these rumors were quickly disproven by staff members.  While attendance does matter for funding, it could be counted at any period in the day. This means that if students didn't show up for the first period, they would not be marked absent for the entire day. In the end, it was determined that homeroom was only moved from the beginning of the day to shorten lunch and make periods longer. This raises another question:  Is two more minutes of class and less time to eat worth students not showing up to the first period or being late?

While the situation at Allderdice gets worse by the day, action needs to be taken to ensure that kids can not only further their education but not be punished for mistakes out of their control. Everyone from students to administrators will need to work together to ensure that lines are cut, education advances, and students aren't stuck being late or out of school.