My first interaction with the computer management software known as “GoGuardian” was in freshman year, and it was under circumstances quite counterintuitive to its own existence.

While the memory is quite fuzzy, from what I recall, I confronted GoGuardian when I was unable to access the “All About Me” we were working on in Intro to Journalism because my previous period’s teacher had forced Google not to open.

In truth, I would say this scenario just about sums up my experience with most of the safety and supervision related reforms Branham has implemented in my past three years here: an ineffective, sloppy and damaging mess.

First, we must look at the underlying societal phenomena that accompany Branham’s own policies. The obsessive desire to protect kids to the fullest extent of the law has been going on for many decades, and has not been exclusively contained to school grounds or the digital landscape.

One could look back all the way to 1994 when San Jose implemented its Youth Curfew Ordinance that still lingers today and limits teens from being out at certain hours of the night.

One could also look to the present. Not only three days before I began writing this, did California legislators pass the landmark “Adam’s Law” bill. Among a laundry list of requirements, the bill mandates that all youth social media accounts be put on default settings that offer no app-related notifications, force time limits on usage and limit the ability for apps to store conversations between teens.

What seems to be at stake in these two scenarios is the ability of today’s youth to operate within their own decision-making capacities, which is particularly important.

In psychologist Ronald Stolberg’s essay “Consider Allowing Your Children More Independence Earlier,” he emphasizes how giving children the ability to make decisions on their own, especially as they get older, can be extremely beneficial to developing their confidence and problem-solving skills. The problem, he notes, is that today’s parents increasingly have begun to overmonitor their kids, not allowing them to acquire such tools so important to adult life.

But I would say the even more important takeaway we can get from curfew laws and digital media laws, is that they create an endless system of limits and regulations that eat up time and produce marginal positive effects.

I can say with full confidence that I do not know anyone that has ever been charged with violating curfew. Likewise, I have known few that have not been able to sign up for websites with age minimums — a concept that has existed since long before Adam’s Law. All you have to do is just give a fake age!

Such rules only serve to tell today’s youth that they are incapable of thinking for themselves, unable to take charge of their own safety and in need of handholding the whole way.

In past years this has been reflected in numerous Branham policies.

GoGuardian, the aforementioned tool made to allow teachers and staff to supervise Chromebooks and keep watch on all student actions, has certainly been problematic since the day I stepped foot into the school, but there are other changes that have encouraged me to view the administration’s decision-making capacities through a lens of much greater disdain.

One such offense has been the closure of a majority of the bathrooms during the school day, leaving only the C building, Cafeteria and L and P bathrooms open for use.

Statements by administrators at the time of the closures in November of last year stated the purpose was to curtail vandalism and overcrowding in the bathrooms, but one can only infer this also includes the prevention of school bathroom use for vaping.

Yet, one can also see the lack of effect this has had. Now relegated to the Cafeteria and P building bathrooms, cohorts of vaping students are still a pretty easy find.

Though they are trying to prevent students from vaping, the school has only punished students who wish to use the bathrooms for more proper purposes by making it harder to do so, especially as many of those once spread-out vapers now flock to the lesser array of open bathrooms.

Then, six months later, in May of last school year, the district took its own stab at solving the vaping epidemic. Across all the schools in the district, including Branham, they worked to install HALO Smart Sensors in each and every bathroom.

These devices are capable of detecting numerous vapors, like those that come from vape or THC, and alert administrators by flashing distinct, color-coded lights and notifying them via district iPads. A built-in microphone can also detect gunshots and certain keywords, though HALO says that no audio is actually recorded.

By personal observation, it is clear that the money spent on these sensors was for naught, but nevertheless, school and district regulation continue to get tighter.

Now this year we can: No longer use Band or Remind for clubs, no longer post on Instagram without first going through StudentSquare and no longer connect personal devices to the school WiFi. Not to mention, we will soon no longer be able to leave the classroom without some sort of bureaucracy, and will have to adhere to the five hall passes given down by another source of regulation that has come about in recent years — Flexisched.

So can we say that the school, or administrators, do not trust us?

Or potentially, do they think that we are little but hooligans in need of control?

I think mostly the former, and a little bit of the latter. In any scenario, there are always going to be bad apples — the vandalist, the hallway-roamer or the cheater — but must we all pay by way of less bathrooms, limited hall passes and GoGuardian?

This neverending push and pull of tightening school restrictions will never get us anywhere. In a hyperbolic sense, it seems to me that the school will have to keep on tightening things until every student receives private, one-on-one escort and supervision within the bathrooms.

In the most ironic way, it’s almost laughable to me that as I was doing research for this article, I found that a quick search of “goguardian mission statement” on Google leads you to a GoGuardian screen stating “Page Blocked by School Admin.”

I hate that going about my normal business during school, whether it be going to the bathroom or doing research, seems to be some sort of crime that must be ended by all possible means.

It is true that in an organized system, some rules must be put in place, but we must also entrust people with the ability to learn and take care of themselves.

Maybe we may soon see the day when administration finally lets go of its ouroboros of policy and punishment, setting itself and the student body free as it allows them to open the Mathway Calculator without a GoGuardian warning.

Maybe then the school will trust students enough to make their own decisions, and develop the reasoning and responsibility capacities to actually grow into college-ready individuals.

Illustration by Kailey Fu/Bear Witness