This year at McNicholas High School, the way class bells have been ordered has gone through a drastic change. Instead of being ordered by numbers, bells are now being ordered by letters.
The change has resulted in a full-scale war between the numbers and letters, and faculty/staff and students have had to pick sides. In general, first-year students and staff have tended to side with the letters, while students and staff who have been at McNick in previous years lean towards numbers.
The letters have succeeded in conquering the titles of bells, but will they stop there? Will the letters launch an attack on the titles of rooms? Students are encouraged to print and memorize this number-to-letter translating button in preparation for the letters’ reign.
All joking aside, the change from numbered to lettered bells isn’t that drastic or serious. It was actually practical. According to Director of Curriculum Mr. Dan Rosenbaum, before McNicholas switched to using Rediker as their main grading system, the school used numbered bells. Rediker, however, uses lettered bells. After the switch, in order to keep from disrupting the entire lives of the McNick community, certain members of the McNick staff had to go into programs such as Schoology, OneNote, and DyKnow and manually change the bells from letters to numbers. This had to be done for every single class, so it took an extended amount of time. In order to save this time and put it towards something more useful, it was unanimously decided that McNick would make the life-changing switch to lettered bells.
Overall, the students and staff on the side of the numbered bells need to stop complaining about the switch. Things change; deal with it. Those on the side of lettered bells need to be less strict though, too. If someone says “Second Bell” instead of “B Bell,” it’s not a big deal. Just go with it.
The McNicholas Milestone 