With the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year at Kempsville High School, many new policies have been implemented. One of the topics with the most controversy is the current headphone policy. With no headphones allowed in classrooms at all times, teachers and students have shown to have strong opinions.
When asked how often she listens to music, Carlotta Kearny a senior at Kempsville High school stated, “I listen to music pretty much every chance I get throughout the day, so about three to four times a day.” This proves to be true for other seniors as well.
Grace Pierce, in her fourth year at Kempsville, explained that she listens to music everyday.
Over the recent years at Kempsville, headphones have been a class by class decision. However, the entire school board has put a stricter policy into place. Students are no longer allowed to have headphones in at any point throughout their class time. Music has been shown to help students in many positive ways. Mentally, academically, and in finding inspiration.
Kearny stated, “For me and many of my friends, music helps us focus and stay concentrated on the tasks we are doing”.
Students aren’t the only ones that have opinions on this new policy.
Dennis Wilson who has been teaching various English and Research classes at Kempsville for six years stated,“I think that there’s a lot of students that benefit from being in an environment where they feel comfortable and them being comfortable is them being able to close off the world around them and have headphones.”
It has been shown that both students and teachers understand and agree on when headphones should be allowed.
Pierce also stated that “I understand during like instructional time not to have headphones in but personally like I’m someone who likes to have music to focus so when it’s independent work I feel like you should be allowed to have headphones in.”
This positively aligns with Wilson’s opinion that the headphones are a “double edged sword” and that it depends when you’re going “back and forth between instruction and independent work.”
When both teachers and students come to an agreement it’s a pretty notable experience that doesn’t commonly occur.
Considering the similarities of opinions between both teachers and students at Kempsville High School, it seems a conclusion could be made.
When implementing policies, it has shown that the comfort of both teachers and students are the number one priority, not the opinions of those above them.
