Many believe that to keep a positive and united school environment, students and teachers’ opinions and contributions should be considered when making decisions on changes and improvements. People feel it is important to include everyone’s thoughts in alterations towards the environment that they spend most of their time in.
Our school has seen many strong changes in the past few years, which helps us grow and better connect as a community. For example, our new House Huddle system has had multiple positive impacts.
“I think the biggest change that we’ve seen this year is the house system. All students got put into their houses to build a sense of belonging,” Krystal Morrisey said.
The system has encouraged most students to socialize and connect within each other in their huddles, other classes, and even outside of school.
“North Central has a lot of pockets, such as the athletes, clubs, activities, and senior pockets. What we don’t collectively have is groups that intermingle with each other, so I’m really excited that the house system allows for all grade levels to interact with each other,” Morrisey said.
Another significant change in our school environment is our new principal, Jagga Rent. Many say that he brings school spirit, positivity, motivation, and more.
“Mr. Rent is goated, he’s a great principal all around. He hasn’t and most likely won’t leave us like past principals have. He’s really polite and makes you want to come up to him and have a conversation,” junior Eli Rainey said.
Most students believe that Rent has been a great role model, teacher, and influence upon our school, ever since his start of being our school principal.
“[Mr. Rent] always brightens my mood when he says hi to me in the hallways. His positive mindset gives me motivation for school,” junior Robrianna Warren said.
Although we have seen many positive changes done to the school in the recent past, students and teachers have personal opinions about modifications that they would like to see.
“I would like more guidance for college applications, as well as more available college rep visits. Knowing how to do these things is very important, and none of us have done this before so it would be good to have guidance,” junior Josilin Froehlke said.
Even though college preparation resources such as Avid serve as useful tools for students, most upperclassmen think that they need more assistance towards their academic future after high school.
“I don’t really feel ready to start applying for colleges next school year or preparing for college overall,” junior Ellie Hamilton said.
Teachers think that having more after school activities that require collaboration would provide more inclusiveness and sense of belonging within students and staff.
“I would love to see more inter-club interaction. We have a lot of clubs and organizations that strive to do similar things. The more we work together, the more inclusive our community becomes,” Erin Lizer said.
According to staff members, mixing different groups of people would bring lots of benefits, such as a sense of belonging, increased socialization, and a stronger community overall.
“People being exposed to people that they normally would not be exposed to would help with student morale. If we had more activities that brought all of the groups together and had them interact with one another to work toward a common goal, that would be really good for everybody,” Spanish teacher Erin Lizer said.
We have seen multiple positive changes to our academic environment, but would like to keep expanding on our ideas and opinions to make our school an even better place.
