The opportunity for students and teachers to play the daily video announcements on the ‘smart board’ affects the way we watch the news- or if anyone watches it at all.

Many students don’t even know that the school now provides ‘video announcements’. Students only wonder why they never hear the spoken news through the intercom anymore.

Since Sept. 23, the school plays our school news via video. At the beginning of the video, music plays and then students stand up and recite the pledge of allegiance. Then the student speaker informs us of events happening throughout the school.

However, approximately half of the teachers don’t even play the video announcements. Teachers are either too busy with handing out graded papers, assigning homework or giving out tests, to even think about wasting part of class time to play a two-to-five-minute-long video.

If students wished to watch the video on their own (which the school website provides a link) on YouTube, but would usually find it blocked. Although recently as of Nov. 18, YouTube is now unblocked and students may watch the videos.

Before video announcements, senior class officers recited the pledge of allegiance and informed us of school events through the intercom. This way, everybody heard them and no teacher avoided playing them to his or her students.

Although the videos provide entertainment for students and teachers, it takes time away from actual learning time, something teachers try to avoid.

A solution to this problem is to return to the old-fashioned way of announcing the news by the senior class officers via the intercom. This way, everyone hears the pledge of allegiance, something some students don’t recite now, because most teachers won’t play the video for their fourth period classes.