I do not think I have ever been so terrified.
It was a typical day for me. I went to school, dragged my feet from class-to-class, attempting to keep my heavy, sleep-deprived eyes open, eager to get home as soon as possible. Unfortunately, that was not a luxury given to me since it was nearing tech week of the all-school play of Shakespeare’s beloved Romeo and Juliet.
Rehearsal goes on like any other, the archaic lines of the near 400-year-old play loudly being read by some of my closest friends over the speakers. I was sitting at the vanity in the dressing room, finally pressing submit on my biology homework.
Suddenly, a loud, robotic-sounding voice comes over the loudspeaker, certainly not belonging to any of my fellow actors. He announces to the nearly deserted school that this is a “Lockdown, lockdown, not a drill.” He says it so fast, I barely have time to process.
For a second or two, there is silence. Then, someone from the corner mutters, “Oh shoot.”
Immediately, there is chaos. Chairs are pushed back so fast they knock to the tile floor, girls scramble to get to the door, a hand slams on my shoulder to forcibly pull my confused body to the bathroom of the dressing room.
As I entered the dressing room bathroom, a light show glows all around me as the girls pull out their phones. After collecting my thoughts, I did the same. And in a moment of pure luck granted to me by whatever guardian angel was on duty that day, my phone had a bar of service. I was able to text my parents. Many of the girls around me were not so lucky, however.
As my eyes roamed around the dark room lit by the dim screens of phones, my eyes landed on the phone of the girl next to me. She texts a hurried “I love you,” presumably to her parents or other loved ones.
She is met a second later with two devastating words written in red: “Not Delivered.”
As we would soon find out, the lockdown was an accident. Although questions were angrily exchanged between the cast, we never did find out or begin to even fathom how such a mistake could have been made.
However, I was more furious over one simple fact, which can be most plainly stated as the following: the Wi-Fi in Huntley High School is awful, and this “lockdown” was the horrifying proof.
Since my freshman year, I have heard complaints over the Wi-Fi nearly every day. Despite the fact that students are given their own Wi-Fi titled “STUDENT,” it hardly works, if at all.
“I am always so frustrated that even though I am connected to the student Wi-Fi, I am still unable to have service,” junior Aleigha Nielsen said. “It makes communicating with my family difficult [since] we cannot get important information across.”
One of the worst spots in the school to try and access service is the cafeteria. This is extremely frustrating to students, considering lunch is one of the only periods where they are given the freedom to use their phones.
“It is awful,” senior Emily Moersfelder said. “It is the only time I can relax and just go on my phone, and not worry about getting work done.”
Not only is it a burden to student’s recreational time, it is also, as clearly stated earlier, a blatant safety issue. We live in a country that is riddled with gun violence. As of Sept. 19, there have been 50 school shootings in 2024 alone. Thirteen were on college campuses and 37 were in K-12 schools.
“I see it on the news all the time,” Nielsen said. “I fear that we could be next.”
Students in America have to wake up every morning, never knowing if it will be their last. As much as people preach to end gun violence, nothing seems to change.
“We need Wi-Fi,” sophomore Ezra Gruendermann said. “I am not able to text my parents at all during the school day.”
As gun violence in school increases, students need their phones to communicate with their loved ones. Many people have responded that this is unlikely to happen, but all they need to do is look at the numbers.
How many students have died from gun violence? How many schools have been made victims of this horrible problem? Were those students able to text their parents their possible goodbyes? The girls in the dressing room certainly could not.
I beg the district to take measures to improve student Wi-Fi. Despite what many argue, phones are not just used to mindlessly scroll through social media. Even though it is a dark opinion, it is true: it could just end up being a final text sent to a loved one.