After school, iron gates are set up around the building which serve to repeatedly block an individual’s path. The resulting frustration is very well known among students and teachers alike.

They appear to herd students around school in droves not very much unlike common farm animals. To understand the real purpose behind the apparently meaningless partitions, one must first ask those who are in charge of their presence after school.

The rusted iron, it turns out, serve a very viable purpose. They are meant to selectively partition the first floor of East into workable sections that force students to move in a predetermined flow around school once the day has ended. The administration feels there are only two places, if students that are not in an official club meeting, should be after school: the library or the weight room. The gates help to guide students to one of these two locations.

“Students need some purpose for staying after, but certain individuals hang around after school. They don’t go to the library and they don’t have club meetings; they are just there,” said Dr. John Burns.

The gates thus force students into supervised areas, where they are monitored and can be kept safe from harm and unnecessary trouble. Perhaps more unknown due to the lack of enforcement, the second and third floors are meant to be off-limits to students without teacher supervision. This effort further forces students in a trek around the perimeter of the school and away from inner corridors, ultimately leading them to the library or weight room. This then leads to the need for fewer security officers in the building to monitor students’ movement and prevents loitering in the hallways and the destruction of school equipment.

“The gates serve to restrict movement in the building, especially of the certain element that tends to get in trouble,” said Campus Police Officer James Wood. “Since we have run it this way, the areas of the building we have been trying to protect have not experienced any theft.”

The wall separating Germany during the Cold War seriously harmed the nation’s development in the long run. Fortunately, it seems that East’s own iron walls, while a hindrance, serve a more functional purpose than may be gleaned at first glance.