By Claire Gapsis
School starts at 7:40 but the day often begins before then. For some students it is an hour or so before then and for others it is only minutes. Either way, life has already started in the school in the morning.
For junior Michael Clark it starts even before 7. He is the first student in the school every day.
“I get to school every day by 6:40; the doors aren’t even open at that time.” Clark arrives early out of habit and necessity.
“I dislike riding the bus so I have my parents drive me to school on their way to work,” he said. He spends the hour before classes begin in various ways. Disliking doing homework after school, Clark often leaves homework undone so he can complete it in the morning instead. Once his homework is done the school has filled with students and he sets out to find his friends to chat.
The library teems with students rushing to finish homework who need to print something off or who just want to talk to friends. There is one group of friends who do it all. Senior Paige Settles is a part of the group and often arrives around 7:05.
“I started coming this early because my dad took me on his way to work while I was a freshman and I just got used to it,” said Settles. Her first class of the day is AP English with English teacher Karen Mayer-Sebastian, but she arrives at school just as the five-minute bell rings. Settles and her friends that share the class decided to meet in the library, right across the hall from the classroom.
“I do homework because I know I’ll be here early,” Settles said, while reviewing vocabulary.
On the other side of the library is another group of friends who chat as they slowly do homework together. Sophomore Beth Brunmeier is one of them. She comes to school around 7.
“My dad used to drop me off, now it’s just habit,” said Brunmeier. Arriving early, she has plenty of time to kill so she leaves some homework to be done in the morning.
“I’m a bit of a procrastinator,” she said.
The cafeteria is another place in the school that has people meeting up to do homework and to chat. It also offers breakfast for those who cannot or do not want to eat at home.
Junior Everson Steele said, “I eat breakfast here. I’m lazy, and it’s easier to get food here than at home.” Everson meets his friends in the cafeteria to talk and to study for their tests of the day as he eats his breakfast.
Even if the start of the school day is at 7:40, life begins before that and the school houses much of the early morning activity.