Each issue, the editorial staff comes to a consensus on an issue important to our school community.

Dust coats the railing of the stairs, the floor and the walls. Rubble piles up inside and outside of our once solid school. We imagine that this week students will struggle through an obstacle course to get to class within the now archaic constraints of the five-minute passing time.

The community has passed the levy; construction has begun. Now is the time to question how much current students will have to sacrifice for the sake of the future.

In the week before school, construction crew members fill the hallways. Instead of the bell, we hear the chimes of machines in reverse. The noise isn’t going away because school is starting. Will stu­dents adjust to the sounds of destruction and creation, or will we struggle to pay attention in class, take tests and have Socratic seminars?

That’s considering students can even make it to class on time. As the school building is being transformed, it will be harder for students to get around. We can only suggest that if the time to get to classes does not change, the teachers will be realistically flexible, taking into consideration the bottleneck effect as well as the possibility of acciden­tal or inconsiderate obstructions in the tunnel.

Aside from physical ramifications, in the process of change, rituals and traditions are often lost in the dust. It’s sad enough that current juniors and seniors will only have memories of these traditions such as white and the gold at the high school, fall previews during advisory, and the homecoming parade and bonfire; it makes us question whether the upcoming classes will re-instate what has defined Beachwood for the past several generations.

By constructing a new school building, we must realize that inevitably we will be constructing a culturally different school as well. Without the stability that we were granted, the freshman could struggle to establish themselves at a broken BHS. It must be overwhelming for fresh­man; it’s not just a new school for them, but a new en­vironment for those who are supposed to lead them.