It’s been a long twenty-seven years since Louisville’s Monarch High School broke off from Lafayette’s Centaurus High School, and since then, nothing but chaos, hostility, and “TP-ing” have plagued the Lafayette-Louisville area. No one was happy about the two-school solution, as Monarch students had to deal with discrimination for being inferior, and Centaurus students had to deal with Monarch’s existence. It seemed nothing was gonna be done about the biggest problem in the district besides all the cellphone addicts ravaging the bathrooms, but in the Warrior Weekly newsletter nobody reads, it was announced that Centaurus and Monarch are to become one school, titled Monaurus, as soon as tomorrow.
The official explanation for this merger is to “advance students’ academic efforts and ensure student engagement”, which is coincidentally the explanation Centaurus gave for a number of other controversial decisions, such as removing the red color from the engineering stairs. Many are not convinced, and some, such as Centaurus freshman Emmaleigh, believe that the district’s inability to continue repairing damage set to Monarch property by Centaurus students is responsible for the merger.
The new school will be in the Centaurus building, which was decided by school board members immediately after stepping foot in Monarch. The Monarch building will be used to store Monaurus students’ confiscated phones, which will be sent by bus at the end of each day. The bus driver, DeWheels Ondabus, is ecstatic about her new job, and has already found ways to have fun with it. “I was thinking I could put the phones on the seats and make a game out of how many I break,” says Ondabus, “Or I could see how many I text on at once while driving.” The district contemplated replacing her due to safety concerns, but elected not to after realizing they’d need to find someone else to hire.
Many have objected to this merger, citing a lot of the same concerns. The most obvious concern is the sheer number of people that would need to fit in the Centaurus building. With a total of around 3000 students, many worry hallways and classrooms would be too crowded. Administration has responded to this by closing the entire parking lot to expand the engineering wing. In the meantime, admin has suggested temporary solutions, such as using one classroom for two classes (for example, teaching a chemistry class while an English class discusses the color symbolism in the periodic table, or teaching a government class while music classes perform “I’m Just a Bill”), and setting up classes in hallways and closets. Administration has even suggested positives for the overcrowded building, such as the exercise students will get from using physical force to get to class, and that students will not use their phones if the crowd physically prevents them from moving their arms.
Another concern is parking, which has already been a problem for many students at Centaurus, (It may be a problem with Monarch as well, but I don’t care enough to find out, journalism is hard), and will become an even bigger problem with twice as many students and an under-construction lot. But don’t fear, students have taken it upon themselves to come up with creative solutions to the parking problem. Some have brainstormed using a forklift to stack cars on top of each other on Warrior Way, and others have suggested driving their cars into the building.
Though some questions are still unanswered, such as if soon-to-be-former Monarch students should be given access to CHS-exclusive features such as Engineering and IB or if they should be considered second-class citizens to “true” Monaurus students, it seems as though Monaurus is set for success. Gone are the days when CHS students needed to drive all the way to Louisville to see the friend they’re embarrassed to have, and gone are the days when Monarch students needed to drive all the way to Lafayette to see the inside of a school worth having school spirit for. Now, everyone from both schools will live in harmony and it’s difficult to foresee any reason this won’t be wonderful for everyone.
