HPHS Students Turn Public Library Into Study Hall

If you walked into the Tuesday night, you might have found yourself surrounded by tables filled with high school students.

There's a good chance they had been there all day.

Final exams began for students this week and end Thursday. To prepare, many students have turned the library into an impromptu study hall.

"Everyone studying makes you want to study," said sophomore Maddie Kerch, who was sitting at a table covered in text books with sophomores Autumn Gibbons and Grace Sullivan.

"At home you have your TV, you have your kitchen," agreed Gibbons, who was studying for an English exam.

The library staff noticed the growing number of students over the weekend and decided to accommodate them. According to Highland Park Public Library marketing specialist Beth Keller, the library has provided additional tables and chairs to the students and even got and Costco to donate snacks.

"It's a social event here," Gibbons said.

The social aspect, while alluring, does have the unfortunate tendency of distracting the students from their work.

"It took me an hour to copy this whole thing," said sophomore Razvan Sera about a Spanish worksheet he was reviewing. Sera was sitting at a table with sophomores Sydney Pinzur and Sean Ebihara.

Gibbons, who pinned the studying/socializing ratio at 50-50, had a somewhat drastic solution to honing her focus on her work.

"I locked myself in a room just to study," she said. "I had a corner and I put up chairs all around it."

For breaks, Gibbons said she had friends pick her up and drive her someplace to hang out. Kerch planned to go home for a dinner break before returning to study.

Sullivan's breaks, which consisted of panicking, sounded eerily like more work.

"I consider every breakdown a little break," she said.

Each student appeared to have one test in particular that most worried them. For Gibbons, it was AP psychology. For Pinzur, it was Spanish. For Ebihara, it was Algebra 2.

"I'm studying for the greatest teacher in school and her name is Ms. (Lauren) Nahigian," Ebihara said. "I'm going to show her this article and, hopefully, she'll give me an A."