First year high school principal decides on theme for school year
Unified. To symbolize that each student’s individuality is irreplaceable to the image of the school, each student received a puzzle piece to the puzzle that is now framed in principal Jeffrey Trapp’s office.
Handed a puzzle piece, all junior high students, senior high students and staff members gathered in the new gym on August 28, 2017.
Along with the additions to the school building, new staff member are settling into their positions. New principal, Jeffery Trapp, saw the enlargement of the student body and staff as an opportunity to establish a theme for the year: we are one.
“I did not want to miss the opportunity to have a school culture and establish we are one,” Trapp said. “We need to take care of this building and take care of our new space.”
Teachers and students are now promoting the hashtag #SHSWeAre1.
“With all this new stuff, we needed to establish we are one but establish we are two separate schools and use that in our school culture,” Trapp said.
Senior Shannon Smith understands what Trapp is trying to get across, but she does not think the assembly and the theme is as effective as Trapp wants it to be.
“I like the saying, but it was really useless to have everyone have a puzzle piece,” Smith said. “The ROAR phrase also makes me feel like I’m in elementary school again, like with panther paws. I get what he’s trying to do, but the age group is too different for what he’s doing.”
However, eighth grade earth science teacher Diane Brooks likes both concepts, and believes that these programs will aid the junior high school students in feeling accepted.
“I feel like the eighth graders have been put in a closet for the past three years,” Brooks said. “They didn’t have honor society and they didn’t have a lot of things. They didn’t really have dances unless they went down to the elementary [school].”
Brooks considers ROAR and the “we are one” theme to be necessary for her pupils. She talks about ROAR every day to “keep them aware that they have to be responsible.”
“I like that ‘we are one’ concept that they’re all together and they’re part of something,” Brooks said. “I don’t think they felt part of something for a while. I bring [ROAR] up every day. ‘How is that being responsible? How is that being respectful?’ I constantly drill it into them, hopefully it will sink in.”
