Walking, walking, walking. As you might know, Welsh Valley Middle School has what is commonly known as a campus design. There are multiple buildings students have different classes in. This is common for high school and college, but less so for middle and elementary schools. This has some cons. It can be a long walk from class to class, there are some classes you can only get to through either back hallways or uncovered walkways, so it is harder in general to get around. 

First of all, it is a longer walk to get to classes than in a typical school building. Instead of walking down a hallway and going up a flight of stairs, we have to cross campus and go up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, which is a lot of work! Also, in a typical school, you don’t need to find a door into the building your class is in. At Welsh Valley, we need to not only walk there, but find an entrance that connects. Another tiring task as a result of this is needing to choose your route. What door do I take, do I risk the rain? Making a lot of decisions can lead to decision fatigue, which makes your decisions worse, not something good to have during a math test.

Second, and importantly, we are subject to the whims of the weather when walking out of buildings to class. On a cold, rainy day, we still need to go out and walk to class. In snow or 100 degree temperatures, we need to walk outside. This means students need to carry around bulky coats all day, and that you need to make sure your books don’t get wet when going to one of the classes that has the choice of no covered walkway or risking being late. Lots of classes have school reading books lent out for students, and teachers can become irritated or you may need to pay a fine for damaged books.

Unlike other middle schools in LMSD, Welsh Valley is campus style. This means it has multiple buildings in a circle. This means having a longer distance between classes and getting affected by weather. This design choice affects students every day in getting to class. Do I get rained on, or worry about being late from a roundabout route? It can also be tiring to get from place to place, especially after an active class. All in all, the design of Welsh Valley affects students every day, and most of that is negative.