New Bell System Changes

After school on October 10th, 2023, the first official tests for the new bell system at Waukee High School started. The following day, there was an overwhelmingly negative response from students about how the new bell system is loud, obnoxious, and overall worse than the old one. Many have compared it to “The Purge Alarm”, with others, such as junior Jovi Molina-Flores, saying it reminds them of a prison. However, from the perspective of the school district, Principal Cary Justmann says this change to the system is for the greater good of the school.

The process is still very much in its early stages and therefore, there weren’t too many other options for another bell sound for a placeholder. However, Justmann has confirmed the current bell sound is not permanent, and in fact, has already undergone 2 changes since its initial testing. “Hopefully this shows people that we’re not done, it’s just a work in progress, and once all of the intercoms come on, it’ll be softer,” he said, “we should be a little more patient and let them finish before anyone is too critical about how it’s going so far.”

According to Director of Operations Garry Pickard, the WHS Building Administration is the one that ultimately decides what sound the bell has and will be, saying they are constantly listening to feedback from students. “Of course, we’re always thinking about that: you don’t want the sound to mirror an alarm of any type, and you don’t want to raise any anxiety of any student or staff member in the building,” said Justmann.

Discussions of a new bell system started a few years ago and were finally set to be installed over the summer, however, they couldn’t finish everything by the start of the school year due to a delay. “They had run a lot of the wiring until a new building in our district, Trailridge, was a little bit behind schedule, so they ended up having to go finish it,” said Justmann. He explained that since Trailridge is a new building in the district and most of the wiring had already been done at WHS, the company could afford to finish Trailridge’s system in time for its proper opening. Due to the school year starting by the time they finished in Trailridge, workers had to be limited to operating during the night and in the afternoons on select school days.

This change in the bell system is necessary for the school as the previous one was very antiquated and presented multiple difficulties when expanding it to the parts of the building where it didn’t work. “With so many additions to the building, wires have to be spliced together instead of having long continuous runs of cable,” said Pickard. In addition, under the new system, the bells should be more accurate to the clock, as well as easier to switch between schedules, making it more efficient overall. “Any time there’s change it’s uncomfortable for people, but this is such a good change, it’s definitely worth it,” Justmann said.