The Diminishing Media Center

The media center at Leonia High School has decreased in size ever since the pandemic started. As of now, in the year 2022, the media center is now the size of a classroom. From before, it is now roughly 4 times smaller in size.

Since the pandemic started in 2019, many schools around the world have changed drastically, including Leonia High School. The COVID-19 pandemic promoted social distancing for quite a while, so classrooms throughout the school had to be more spread out seating wise, and moved around. The media center was taken over by two new classrooms. Not only did the pandemic impact Leonia High Schools media center (the library), but so did hurricane Ida, which occurred in 2021. Hurricane Ida flooded the bottom floor of the school, leaving many classrooms out of use for quite some time, so rooms had to be crammed by multiple teachers using one room throughout different parts of the day. This was first seen as a temporary solution, but ended up being permanent.

Throughout the 2021-2022 school year, removable walls were set up in the media center to provide room for extra classrooms. These classrooms were utilized, and with the growing amount of new teachers that have entered the school this year, those classrooms are very much needed now. Over the summer of 2022, permanent walls were placed into the media center in order to create full time classrooms. This caused the media center to be moved to an available room-the old AEL room.

Past students and current faculty members at LHS have expressed disappointment about the media center decreasing in size so much to the point nobody even knows it exists anymore. While replacing the media center and establishing a better location may be in the future, it is difficult to say when the district’s budget will allow for it.

To end this article off on a more positive note, there are many free books that are being given away by the school. Located in the hallway of the English/History office, a table full of free books awaits.