1:19 p.m. is undoubtedly the most havoc-wreaking moment of our school day. As students leave lunch in the quad to go to their fifth-period classes, countless seagulls fly down to claim the copious amounts of trash they leave. Despite constant reminders from staff and teachers, La Jolla High students proceed to disregard the disarrayed state of the quad after lunch.

This issue is not a new one, rather a never-ending problem that has been around for as long as some students can remember. Senior Andrew Park says, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that all the seagulls in La Jolla must congregate around the La Jolla High Quad.” An immense amount of work is left for the janitorial staff to clean up when students continuously ignore the aftermath of their littering and leave their trash to be consumed by seagulls.

Freshman Sarah Lehman commented on the quad’s condition, saying that “Many students’ policy of leaving their trash on the ground despite the numerous available trash cans is so ludicrous it begs the question, do they just like the seagulls?” It’s simply outrageous how this problem would be nonexistent if students took just a few seconds to walk over to one of the trash cans located all around the quad, yet they persistently refuse to do so.

For this reason, it is imperative that students begin to recognize the severity of this matter and help make change, regardless of whether or not they have contributed to the issue. Simply discarding personal trash in the bins and picking up what’s left on the ground in the quad and around campus is guaranteed to make a significant difference. Proposing punishments will not be as effective in solving this situation, because at the end of the day, it’s the students whose moral conduct towards the general problem of littering in our community needs to reform.