Tag Archives: Shaw Ray

Senior week offers fun times for graduating class

By Rachel Lamb

With roughly one month of high school left, seniors were congratulated through senior week. This gave the graduating class a week break from school lunch and invited them to the gym for music, catered food, and fun.

“My favorite part of senior week is only sitting around seniors at lunch. It is nothing like in the school cafeteria,” said senior Claire Watkins.

Other seniors, such as Katrina Klingsmith, favor it due to convenience of the food.

“It is nice to sleep in and not have to worry about packing my lunch in the morning, since I normally bring it everyday.”

Even though there are still many celebratory events left, senior week can be an emotional time.

“I feel the end is coming. I’m going to miss all of my friends so much,” said senior Alec Chait.

He added that this time of year is very stressful and senoritis is slowly beginning to sneak in.

Senior Shaw Ray has a different opinion on how senior week makes him feel.

“This event gives me a hint that we’re almost done with high school, but not to give up yet, we’re not completely done.”

Ray also shared that he thinks seniors are offered a big opportunity.

“It’s a good way to be able to talk to other seniors about your plans for after high school, since you do not really get to see your classmates as much as you think.”

Another senior, Timon Stermer, agreed with Ray.

“I rarely see my classmates during the school day. Senior week is probably one of the few occasions that I see a lot of them at once.”

Many seniors feel that this point in the year is a good time to slow down and focus on the present.

“I’m enjoying what is left of the year and I want to spend the time we have left making memories that I’ll never forgot,” said Klingsmith.

 

Snow days call for schedule changes

By Rachel Lamb and Megan Johnson

Snow and ice have been cascading upon the ground in drastic amounts, especially over areas in Southern Indiana. Due to these wintery conditions, New Albany-Floyd County schools have lost several instructional school days.

“I have heard of two different ways to make them up. One is they take away from our second week of spring break and add on to the end of the year. Second is extra days are to be added to the end of next year,” said sophomore Logan Smith.

Options such as staying an extra hour after school and going to school on Saturdays have also been mentioned for other schools in Indiana.

“Fort Wayne Consolidated Schools have to stay after school one hour for 24 days straight, in order to make up snow days,” said principal Janie Whaley.

Senior Shaw Ray shared his opinion on the two ideas.

“I think the options are both bad, considering some people have jobs and play sports.”

Students that are seniors such as Ray,  just want to make up the days needed and get out of high school.

“Honestly, I really do not care how the snow days are made up, as long as I graduate on time,” he said.

Whaley added that the graduation date, which is currently set for June 8, will not be moved unless five more snow days occur.

Certain days that students have missed are waived due to not necessarily the snow, but the temperature outside. Sometimes, the days missed contribute to a mixture of the two.

“I feel as though we should not  have to make all of the days up, considering that we were in a state of emergency for a couple of them,” said freshman Kayla Brown.

Making up hours for two-hour delay days has even been in consideration by the Indiana legislature, but Whaley said that is not the plan for the immediate future.

Sophomore Heather Bouch shared why she thinks we should not have to make the hours up.

“We still went to school that day, just not for the full time.”

Bouch is not the only student that feels this way about the shortened days.

“I don’t think that we should have to make up the shortened days because we still attend those days and learn the material we need, even though the days were slightly shorter,” said Brown.

However, the administration has made an official decision on the matter. On Feb. 6, the dates on which snow days are to be made up were released on the New Albany-Floyd County School website. Students will have only one week of spring break and then will return to school on March 31 through April 4. There will also be an additional day added to the end of the year, June 2.

Any further missed days will be added on after June 2.