We live next door to my old high school (FTR I have been to and lived in several interesting places around the planet since high school, but I now live next to it. MY life’s a circle, but that’s another thread).
I know that things that happen on campus, like football games and practice, are pretty much inviolate, and even I think they should be. But lately, JavaWoman tells me, they’ve started having their P.E. classes run through the alley behind our apartment. The noise is very disruptive. I realize that the alley is a public thoroughfare and the gym teachers have the right to run their classes through the streets, but is it possible to file a noise complaint with the city or the school district? Just because the school can do this, does it mean they must or should? The school has a running track, like most schools, and could probably map out a decent mini-cross-country course within its fences.
There might be some safety regulation they’re breaking, like no pedestrian traffic allowed in alleys, or they might be unnecessarily endangering the students.
But that’s only if you want to be known as the crusty old curmudgeon who made them change their route because you didn’t want a bunch of dang kids running through your back yard.
Maybe if you just stood back there and waved a rake and hollered at them, they’d stop.
I doubt there’s really anything you can do about it.
My junior high used to do something like this. We’d run down a majorish road into an office complex and run around the complex for a while. The only good thing about it was that we got to run somewhere other than the track. It was just an iota more interesting.
Weren’t these sorts of disruptions forseeable when you chose to live next to a public high school?
Unless you happen to work third shift or the runners are yelling and cursing, I think you’re out of luck. Of course, a politely worded request to the coach couldn’t hurt. Just make sure you cc the school board.
When I worked third shift, I had a co-worker who lived next to the high school, on a fairly low-traffic street that the marching band used for practice. One bright morning after work she was preparing for her upcoming rummage sale, which included polishing her old cornet that I had offered to buy.
Just then the band came by doing its thing. As the horns approached her house, she let a couple of obnoxious blaaaaaaatttts from the cornet go out through the window. The band stopped marching and the director went back to chew out the befuddled brass players. They started marching again, my friend let a few more rip, the brass got their butts chewed, repeat a few more times. Wish I could have seen it.
Don’t know how one might apply this idea to runners, though.
Scarlett - bloody hilarious. Javaman, be thankful there’s no marching band practice, and the worst you have to deal with is runners. When I was in marching band, the percussion played so loud we set off car alarms.
As for runners, some polite words to the coach or school might help, but they might only exacerbate the problem: “Hey guys! Be QUIET! That person was complaining about us!” as they run by. Kids can be, well, juvenile.
You might try scaring them away from that route. As I can’t think of a specific way, that’s not much of a suggestion, is it? I’m just thinking about their age and gullibility. Anyways, good luck with your quest for peace and quiet (and sanity).
High schools, like airports, public parks, bars and railroad tracks, are noisy places. You could complain to the school board, but I think that would be unethical. The high school was there before you were, and I think that running through a public ally is not an unreasonable circumstance. If they were holding music practice or something out there, maybe, but at most the running can last for what…five minutes a few times a day? Think about all the poor children in Russia that have to live with school children jogging down their allys for weeks at a time!
Maybe a less…annoying…way for you to handle this would be to talk to the coach personally. Maybe you both will gain some insight.
I think you’d be amazed at how much recourse you have, with the administration of the school. A politely worded letter to the principal (no need to bring the school board in)-- .cc the coach, if you can–is probably all it takes. For all you know, the PE class has options as to where to run, and they’ll just run somewhere else where they get less flak.
And it’s also possible that running may just be what they do this month. Next month they’ll be climbing ropes, or playing volleyball, or pantsing nerds, or something.
Its a High School, they are like this, in short I’d say you’re going to have to cope with it. Like the others have said, it was there first.
A friendly, personable note to the coach (you may CC the principal, but address the coach in a non-confrontational manner) would probably get the job done, or at least get from him a compromise in the situation.
No need to go sabre rattling or escalating the situation, handle it like a good neighbor.
Talk to the coach first, and nicely. (Teachers hate it when you bring in the administration right away- we like a chance to fix our problems ourselves first.) Just explain the problem, and ask if there are any other routes for their run. He or she probably never even thought about people in those buildings.
After that, you can decide if you want to go to the principal, then the school board, and make a big deal about it. But you will get a reputation as a bad neighbor, and I think if the coach and I couldn’t deal with it, I might consider just chalking it up to school-related noise- and wait to approach the next coach when jobs change.
Harrassment is harrassment. Play music, scream at them, threaten them, whatever- you’ll lost a lot of points with the local school board, not to mention the local police.
How about a slightly more refined approach? You say they run through an alley? Do ONLY residences back onto this alley? Is there any kind of commerce or industry? Waste?..DANGEROUS waste?.. ASBESTOS-FILLED dangerous waste?
If there is even a chance that, without lying ONE bit, you can show the School Board that it is in fact dangerous or unhealthy for those kids to run down that alley, they’ll be gone faster than you can say **Fast Times At Ridgemont High **.
Go ahead. Say it. See how fast that was? Just imagine.
