January 3, 2019
As talks concerning new schedules and later start times circulate in Lexington High School, one may wonder why students aren’t playing a bigger role in the discussion of these major changes.
The main mode of communication between the school administration and students is in the form of homeroom announcements, which are not necessarily effective at spreading the word about feedback opportunities.
“Homeroom is difficult because it becomes a scramble to get I Block, and announcements happen at the end of the block instead of the beginning, which causes [these] announcements to get the back burner,” Holly Gilligan, an English teacher at LHS, said.
But it’s not entirely the administration’s fault; students should also take more initiative in formulating school policy.
The LHS administration has sent out two surveys and has been holding I Block sessions to receive student feedback. Though these are beneficial, there has not been much student response.
“Sometimes students’ plates already seem too full. Students are too busy to take advantage of the opportunities, and feel that their input won’t make a difference, which is not true,” Gilligan said.
Gilligan is correct in this notion: there’s often a misconception that the opinions of students don’t matter and won’t change the eventual outcome of a decision. This couldn’t be farther from the truth; in recent years, the administration has consistently listened to individual students and student groups.
However, the inactivity of the student body combined with the limited opportunities provided by the LHS administration have created an absence of student input during this important decision making processes.
With the rise of nation wide student movements such as Students Demand Action and #Enough, the number of high school students getting involved at both the micro and macro political level has skyrocketed. This new-found wave of activism sweeping the country can and should be applied to the LHS community as well.
We’ve done a good job so far:
“In the three years I’ve been here, student involvement has expanded recognized holidays to be more inclusive, the homework and test policies truly help alleviate stress, and lunches now contain compost bins to reduce the amount of foods we waste,”Ashlan Ahmed, a junior, said.
But further participation is crucial, and can manifest in different ways, such as participating in I Block sessions, attending school committee meetings and joining organizations specific to LHS, such as the Lexington Education Foundation, which takes student input seriously.
“As a student ambassador for LEF, at the end of the year, we talk about new classes and whether they will benefit the student body...this included the Women in Literature class,” Ahmed said.
Involvement within administrative reform is vital to improving the quality of education provided at LHS. Without student involvement, it becomes increasingly difficult for school committee officials to decide how to develop learning systems that can accommodate each new generation. Involvement is key to fixing the gap between the higher authorities and the student body that will be most impacted by their decisions. Ultimately, any school ruling, whether it’s a later start time or a different schedule, will have a profound effect on the student body. It’s in every student’s best interest to make sure their views are represented and heard.
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