Not but a week ago, panic flooded through study halls all across Triton High School. Coolmathgames.com, a website famous amongst students for wasting time, was “banned” by the Triton Help Desk. The site, commonly known as just “Cool Math” had been a rendezvous point for time burners for as long as most students can remember, so naturally there was so backlash from the student body. In even stranger fashion, the site was then unblocked this prior Monday. Why the sudden back and forth? Should there even be a debate? 

To the untrained eye, “Cool Math” sounds to be like a math-related website to keep students entertained, but much more can be seen below the surface. Students mainly use Cool Math as a Trojan Horse of video games disguised as mathematics, fully available on a school-issued Chromebook  at any time.

Cool Math is commonly used as an escape from the monotonous school day via a deceiving domain name, but has this escape gone too far?

When speaking directly with  the source, the head of Triton Regionals IT Department, Mr. Kulowiec, the full situation can be seen. According to Kuloweic, the Triton Help Desk receives all requests from faculty members to ban certain sites on the network. In the past few weeks, Cool Math had many conflicting requests being delivered to the Help Desk.

“Some teachers are going ‘Can you please block this on the network? It’s problematic for my students’ and then some teachers are going ‘Hey I like my kids to go here for the last 5 minutes of class.’”

When speaking to Triton junior Cole Piaseczynski, he had a different perspective on the situation. Piaseczynski seemed to believe that the banning of Cool Math was insignificant at the end of the day.

“If you ban one website, another one is just going to arise.” said Piaseczynski, “With banning Cool Math you’re not eliminating the problem, you’re just putting it off” 

This attitude is felt widely amongst students. The other main argument to keep the site unblocked made by the people of Triton (typically students) is that the site is a good distraction in times of need. In some cases, the site is seen as an escape from the occasionally stressful school day when all you have is a computer. Triton sophomore Izzy Turner reflected this opinion.

“My teacher…gave us five minutes to study for a test that we had that period, and I needed to chill so I played Cool Math Games.” said Turner. “And I got a 100 on that test.”

While on the surface it may seem that Turner is completely for the website, she went on to explain that she had her fair share of experiences where she had seen the negative side of Cool Math Games.

“Some people who aren’t doing as well in their classes will take their time to play Cool Math Games instead of listening.”

Similar to Turner, many students can put aside their love for the website and acknowledge that the website has its distracting features. In certain games where you play for long periods of time, the game can suck you in and become your main priority. Then a student is in a situation where they are engrossed in a game and they cannot fight their own will to quit the game, costing them dearly.

“I almost had to get held back in elementary school because of ‘Awesome Tanks’” said Triton High School junior and long-time Cool Math user, Jack Harden. “Used to get yelled at every day.”

Most kids first come into contact with the website in their youth, being in elementary school or middle school at the latest. When speaking with Stacy Neary, the Pine Grove Elementary School Kids Club coordinator, this message was reflected even years later.

“I have a big Cool Math Games problem right now.” said Neary. “All the kids think they can trick me during homework time by turning on their computer and playing games, but I see everything.”

When this current generation of high school students were younger, there was Cool Math with us to grow along with and students either reaped the benefits or got lost in the gaming madness. If blocking this website on the Triton network can remove the potential of each, should Triton as a community come together for the betterment of the next generation?

In a perfect world, this banning halts the next generation of high schoolers from being distracted by gaming during class, but will the current Cool Math lovers come together and keep their pride and joy alive and risk distracting themselves from their school work?

“I completely understand the argument on both sides,” said Kuloweic, “How this is all coming ot a head at the same time is fascinating.”