AC in the gym wing 

When you work out, you want to feel cool. Physical exertion through exercise is enough exhaustion for a student to handle, but without AC? Students have two 85-minute blocks of P.E. every week.  That’s roughly two hours and 48 minutes in total.  That’s not a short amount of time for some students.  Exercising is sometimes the last thing students want to do, and without the cool support of air conditioning, can you blame them? While there are fans throughout the gym wing, it doesn’t do much.  

“[The gym wing] needs air conditioning,” says freshman Sattaphi Miller. “It can make gym class a lot harder than it should be.” 

Assigned cafeterias 

I understand why we have assigned cafeterias.  We can’t have kids roaming around the halls, or places getting too crowded.  Students should at least have a say in what cafeteria they eat in.  What if a group of students who are friends are in separate cafeterias? Yes, they can go to the hub.  What if it’s closed? What if the Academic Study Center has reached capacity? What if they get in trouble for being too noisy in the library? They should have a place to go that they are guaranteed entrance to together.  

“I think going to a specific one is not needed.  Friends outside of the same cafeteria should be able to socialize with each other,” says freshman Talia Reichlin. 

Students shouldn’t have to worry about scheduling intricate lunch plans on where to meet and when, especially underclassmen who can’t leave campus and are sometimes stuck with their assigned cafeteria. 

Rigorous classes for underclassmen

Upperclassmen have the option to take honors classes and AP.  I’m not saying all freshmen and sophomores have to take an AP class but maybe a little bit more of a challenge in classes might be good.  Not every freshman comes from a district 65 school so a lot of kids land at different levels.  There should be options for students who don’t want to retake or repeat what they’ve already learned. Just because they’re underclassmen doesn’t mean they don’t have the capacity to undertake rigorous coursework. Yes, Humanities and Civics are graduation requirements but could it be split up into sections of AP and honors? Are there remedies?