A lot of hard work is required to keep anything clean — whether it’s just as simple as your room or as vast as a school campus. Bear River High School has a beautiful campus to be proud of. Though, when it comes to it, most of this hard work is done by the maintenance crew, custodial team, and grounds crew, but it’s not solely their job uphold our campus’ beauty — the students are also responsible for it.

We at The Current believe that students generally do respect our campus.

As an administrator, Bear River’s Principal, Christopher Roberts, has traveled all over the United States, touring many different school campuses. He shared his view of how students are treating our campus.

“The Bear River Campus, especially with where it is located, is one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve been to,” he said. “Our custodial team, maintenance team and grounds crew do an incredible job keeping our school looking amazing and in good working order. [But] I’ve spent time walking around during the school day picking up trash. So, to answer the question of whether I think that the students should put more effort into keeping their campus clean, absolutely they should.”

Agreeing with Mr. Roberts, Lizzie Glomson, a sophomore, explained, on a student point of view, how the students are affecting the cleanliness of the campus.

“Yes, I do believe students are disrespecting our campus,” she said. “There is trash around our school and we just leave it, acting like that since it’s not their own home, they can trash the campus and someone else would clean it up like the janitors. It’s just not fair to them.”

Though, not every student feels the same as Glomson.

“I think that, in general, our campus is pretty clean,” said Sophomore Geneva Hemmert. “I went to NU last year, and that campus was kind of gross, so I don’t think there’s a huge problem on our campus … I do see a lot of trash, especially in the quad area, where a lot of kids eat lunch.”

Mr. Roberts described why it’s important to uphold the cleanliness of our campus.

“Many of our students spend more time at school than they do their own homes,” he said. “So, essentially, this is their home away from home for 4 years of their life. How crucial is it, then, to keep their ‘home’ looking beautiful and working properly? … You’re living here! Make this a great place to live!”

Many students around campus notice the habit of their fellow students to leave their trash where they were sitting at lunch. Glomson went more in depth on why she believes many do this.

“I believe they leave their trash around the campus because, one, they’re lazy,” she said. “And two, they don’t want to get up from their friends or wherever they are sitting at to walk up to the trash and throw it away.”

Marie-Claire Desplancke, a senior, described her opinion about students’ lack of responsibility.

“Be considerate,” she said. “Like, really? It’s not hard. Just pick up and throw away your trash. This isn’t your home where you leave around, right? … There’s a lot of great things we can do … but why can’t we solve other problems that are hurting other people’s lives on a daily basis? It’s not a life or death situation or something on campus, but people are just lacking the basic decency of being a human being.”

Mr. Roberts explained why students should care more about the well-being of our campus.

“We have people from all over coming to Bear River for a variety of reasons,” he said. “We even have exchange students here from other countries. What do you want these visitors to our school to say when they leave our campus? … I would want them to say that our campus is beautiful and that the staff and students make it so.”

Several Bear River students talked more in-depth on how students could influence others to pick up after themselves.

“I think if we want to influence more students to take better care of our campus, we should just let people know that it’s not that hard to pick up after yourself,” said Hemmert. “I think if people want to get rid of this problem, it just needs to be more of a group effort, and it doesn’t have to be such a big deal to pick up trash.”

Others thought that maybe students could influence their fellow peers.

“Students talking to students,” Desplancke said. “We think we’re adults, but we’re really not yet. Legally, some of us are, but I think if we just have kids talking to kids, they’ll be like, ‘Hey, just pick up your trash. It’s not hard.’ There are trash cans everywhere, come on!”

“They can start by picking up their own trash and being responsible of their own trash and putting it in the garbage cans,” Glomson said. “It’s really not that hard, it’s just students get lazy and they should really start cleaning up the campus and acting like it’s their own house.”

Desplancke commented on the bigger picture of this small problem.

“People just need to be basic human beings and be kind to themselves, others, and their surroundings,” she said.