The atmosphere grew heated and suffocating, little beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, and her hands grew clammy. This was similar to a first-day-of-school nightmare. Dread kicked in as the bell rang and the precious five minutes sped by as the straight-A student frantically rushed to locate the ghost room which had appeared on her schedule. None of her friends knew it existed, the map of the school didn’t seem to include it, and as the bell rang again, her shoulders sagged in failure as she stood silhouetted in the middle of an empty hall, lost and helpless, with the ring of the bell echoing in her head.
Over the years, an overwhelming number of students shared similar experiences in efforts to find the room numbers 159A, 256, and 124, and other classes that are located in the wings of the school due to the numbering system that is in place.
“The room numbers are just out of sync,” Principal Judy McDonald said. “The numbers don’t match up because there are more rooms on one side of the hall than on the other side.”
Even typical classes like math and science classes have proved tough to find especially by new students and freshmen who are inexperienced in the school.
“Freshman year, I had tennis, and no one told me where the tennis courts were,” junior Anna Johnson said. “I went all the way around the building trying to find it, and finally Zach Shaver told me they were outside the math wing. I was so embarrassed. I felt like everyone should know where the tennis courts were.”
Some students who have encountered this type of ordeal offer assistance by sharing knowledge from their own personal experiences with younger classmen.
“Now I help freshmen and new kids find their classes, and sometimes I’m even late to class helping them, but it’s worth it,” Johnson said.
However, some areas have a reputation to older classmen as places of mischief due to infrequent passers-by and unaware students.
“The elevator’s where everyone wants to go to when they don’t want to be caught doing stuff,” Johnson said.
However, in response to open concern, the administrative staff is alert to problems and addresses the situation.
“We still try to patrol those areas, but there are certain stairwells that may not be trafficked as often especially when school’s out,” McDonald said. “But during the school day there’s pretty much traffic everywhere, so we haven’t had much trouble, but in years past we’ve had some after-hour activities going on, and there’s been a couple of little instances.”
Despite beliefs that these rooms are intended to be secretly placed, they’re simply just hard to find. In reality, the phantom rooms appearing on schedules, like 159A, 258, and 124, are merely JROTC, Communications Applications (which is upstairs above the theater), and the Band Hall respectively.