Are Students Allowed to Sleep in the Lounge?

Consecutive summative assignments, presentations, after school activities and more can certainly lead students to become easily exhausted. The lounge is a place where students often go to relax or either work on their individual assignments. There are sometimes where students lie down on the couch to relax or to take a short nap between breaks, lunch time, and during their free periods. There is an uprising controversy about whether students are allowed to sleep in the lounge. If lounge is a place for relaxing, are students allowed to sleep in there? Or is the purpose of the lounge understood differently for everyone? There were several teachers waking up students that were sleeping in the lounge as they walk by the hallway. Different opinions and thoughts were provided about this situation with the debate of whether lounge is a suitable place for students to sleep or take a nap.

An anonymous student provided her opinion and said, “I think the school provided the lounge for us to relax and stay comfortable. Sleeping is one way to stay relaxed. Therefore, I personally don’t understand why students are not allowed to sleep in the lounge if the lounge is served with the purpose of relaxing or taking a break. If students are not allowed to sleep in the lounge because it negatively affects the school, then I don’t think it is reasonable for us to fight against our drowsiness and stay awake outside of class”.

Another anonymous student agreed on the previous student, claiming that students should be able to take naps in the lounge. “I feel like a lot of students aren’t getting enough sleep when they go home so I think we should be allowed to take naps in the lounge during our free periods or either create a space for us to take naps”. A student also claimed that it seems a bit ridiculous to stop students from sleeping in the lounge during lunch or free blocks. She said it’s our own “judgment call” and that students’s times are going to be spent better when we catch up on sleep. ” I think it’s up to the students and by now, I’m very sure most of us know how to manage our time. I think it’s also somehow unfair because free periods are when students are outside of class and it’s our own time, so it’s a block that you can do whatever you want which could be taking a nap, going on social media, catching up with work or reading. Students have a lot of work to do especially during their senior year, it’s really tough and since students are not sleeping during class I don’t get why sleeping in the lounge is a problem”.

This controversy also led students to ask if there is a “sleeping policy” in school. According to Mr. Tragert, he said, “I don’t think the school has a clear policy about it, but according to the teachers, school is a professional learning environment. Much in the same way that I don’t show up in my pajamas, we probably shouldn’t just sleep wherever we want. We want to encourage everybody in our community to hold themselves to a certain standard. I’m guessing that teachers can view students sleeping in the lounge as distracting or it is not a good use of their time, but I haven’t talked to a specific teacher about this yet”. He continued and said, “If anyone has concerns they can talk to those teachers and express the reason why they are sleeping. There are productive conversations that can be carried out. They can also always come talk to me, I’m always happy to be a voice for students and a voice for reasons. If we create a sleeping room we want to be an inclusive sleeping room, so I want to be able to come in and take a nap”.

Sleep is definitely important to everyone and because some students are not getting enough sleep, they tend to sleep during breaks and their free blocks. The advantage of sleeping at home and at school is different because most of us will probably agree that our beds are more comfortable than the couches in the lounge. However, sleeping in the lounge can certainly help students when do not get enough. A designated sleeping room is also a fresh solution that we can come up with specific rules and policies.