StuCo Fights Tardiness with Minute Music

Engulfing all conversations and dissolving the endless chatter of the hallways, Ke$ha’s ‘“We R Who We R” streams through the hall speakers.  Breaking apart from her group of friends, freshman Kayla Van Thullenar turns in the direction of her next hour: she can’t be tardy again. Racing the clock through the hallways, Kayla listens to music around her. She reaches her class’ door, and lunges into the room just before the bell rings. She’s made it.

This semester, StuCo has decided to begin playing ‘Minute Music’ in hopes it will help to reduce tardiness. The school-appropriate music plays only in the gymnasiums and the hallways for the last minute of each passing period to remind lingering students to get to class.

“The music minute really helps me because even if I have my phone on me to know the time, it’s not synced with the east bell system, so it’s nice having a guarantee that there is one minute left until class,” Van Thullenar said. “It takes out the guess work.”

StuCo first heard about the idea at a district wide Student Council meeting from the students from both SM West and SM South. Since the music had a positive result at both schools, StuCo decided it would be a good idea to bring the Minute Music to East.

SM West Associate Principle Erica Warren says that within the first two months of using their version of Minute Music, West experienced a 40 percent decrease in tardies.

“I’m not saying we don’t still have tardies, but the number of students in the hall when the bell rings is very low in comparison,” Warren said.

After hearing the positive feedback about the noticeable drop in tardies from various schools, StuCo and the Administration were confident that the music would have the same positive results at East.

“At one point we all thought: ‘OK, we want music in the hallways during passing period’ and this seems to work,” Associate Principal Steven Loe said. “Why don’t we knock out two birds with one stone?”

In order to get the system up and running, StuCo had to purchase a compatible MP3 player and load it with the music that they wanted to be played before the MP3 player could be wired with East’s PA system over winter break.

“I just went through my iTunes library and tried to find something that didn’t have cuss words in it,” StuCo Treasurer Meagan Dexter said.  “It’s a limited selection, but it’s on there!”

Meagan loaded the MP3 player with a playlist containing over 150 different hit songs in order to please the largest amount of kids sharing different tastes.

“I wanted Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond,” Loe said. “If you are going to get kids to go to class you give them that music, right?”

An adapter connects the MP3 player to the Simplex system that the bell system is run through. The MP3 player runs 24/7, but the volume only kicks in at the times machine is programmed to. The adapter also charges the MP3 so that it never runs out of battery. The times of the music and the location of the speakers playing the music can be programmed to fit the system’s specific needs. For instance, the Minute Music is set not to play in the classroom in order to insure minimal teacher disruption. StuCo Sponsor Hannah Pence thinks teachers appreciate the fact the music is limited to just the hallways.

“Sometimes you are trying to talk to student and do things and [the music] would be a disruption,” Pence said.

The future of Minute Music here at East depends on the results of this semester, since the music will continue on to finish out this school year. It is more than likely that the minute music will be returning next year and even the year after that. Loe says that the administration and StuCo will check around with teachers in about a month to see if there has been any noticeable decline in tardies. If so, and if the outlook on Minute Music is positive throughout the school, then it will continue to play on for years to come.