Oak Park-River Forest High School and its closed campus

OPRF High School people are well-advised to give proposed lunch-time campus lockdown some careful thought.  Major, major changes are involved.

Much of the issue with a closed campus is related to space. The campus has been open since 1971 and the cafeterias and other areas might not be equipped to handle the extra students who typically leave, officials said. Likewise, [Principal Nathaniel] Rouse said there is also the possibility, but not a guarantee, that more students interacting might cause more discipline problems.

“Because you have more individuals inside the building, that means the infractions are going to increase,” Rouse said. “Infractions not just necessarily related to violating lunch privileges, but infractions in general. When you put everyone back in the building, and you have the wonderful demographics that we do, the different cultures, the different ways our students interact, you are going to have more, for lack of a better word, friction.”

In any case, what’s on the table is looking like Prohibition of the ’20s, whose enforcement leads to more problems than it solves.