The ups & downs of The Loft

The Loft is a quiet place for junior high students to study.

The Loft is a study space outside Upper School counselor and academic advisor Mrs. Echeverri’s office that junior high students can go to after lunch to study and do homework. It first opened last school year. However, after weeks of students misusing the privilege of this study area, seventh graders are no longer allowed to use it.

Many students like to use the space outside of Mrs. Echeverri’s office to catch up on homework or study. Having a space like The Loft allows them to complete assignments so they have more time at home to sleep or do after-school activities and sports. 

“It is really helpful to be able to have a place where we can study during lunch, especially if you are a student athlete, because we get home really late from practice and don’t have any time to do homework, so having a place at school where we can complete assignments during lunch is really helpful,” said Carolina Miyares ‘31. 

However, many seventh graders left their trash and items behind in The Loft. Also, they were not using The Loft properly.

“It came to our attention that a lot of seventh graders were monopolizing The Loft, not allowing other seventh graders and other eighth graders to be able to use The Loft,” said associate dean of student life Mrs. Aguiar.

Another issue with The Loft was that many students were skipping or rushing lunch so that they could get there before others and sign up, since there is limited space. 

Mrs. Aguiar made changes to the sign-up sheet to try and allow other students a chance to use it 

“Seventh graders were…skipping lunch…in order to be able to use the space during lunch…so we changed the timing to 12:15 to give everybody enough time to have lunch,” she said. 

While there have been many challenges as students learn how to properly use The Loft, she is happy about how much people are using it this year. 

“I think The Loft is actually being used more than it has in the previous years, which makes me happy,” she said.