Do Right Forum: Student’s Opinions Matter!
Student’s opinions matter! That was what Student Forum was all about. On Oct. 23rd, a student-teacher meeting, organized by Mr. Alonzo and Mr. Christian, was held in Lincoln’s media center from advisory period to the beginning of lunch. Teachers had previously nominated certain students to participate in the event. Student Forum’s mission was to gather students’ opinions and thoughts on subjects such as their likes and dislikes about school, their high school expectations, and possible ways to make the overall experience at Lincoln better. Pizza was given to all participants at the end of the meeting.
Student Forum began with a quick introduction of the program’s goals. Students then headed towards the computers and took a quick, anonymous survey. The survey contained phrases with multiple choice answers, which asked the students to rate the phrase based on whether they agreed, disagreed, or were neutral about its subject.
Lion Tales talked to a participating senior, Ryan Howard, who was the first student to finish the survey. Ryan first stated that he came not knowing what the event was going to be about, and he “was just here for the pizza.” He went on to say he was “fine with the current status of the school.”
Nelson Velazquez, a sophomore, already knew what the meeting was about when he arrived. He had a positive reaction to the program, saying that “[he] really liked it…because it felt like [the school] really cared about [the students].”
When all the participants of the Student Forum were finished with their surveys, they headed back to the tables and gathered into groups of four to complete a worksheet containing eight questions. These were some of the questions: “What’s your favorite thing about school, and what is your least favorite?” “What is a change you’d like to see in the way people treat each other and their school environment?”
In response to a question about Lincoln’s current school schedule, Naava Ellenberg, a sophomore noted, “I like it, I just wish we started school a little later.”
A freshman, Kaitlyn Scadina, gave Lion Tales feedback on her expectations of high school, “I just wanna get good grades and scholarship opportunities to set me up for the future.”
A junior, Javier Melchor Corona, wanted to see a change in the classroom. He told Lion Tales that “instead of sitting down and doing work everyday,” he’d like to have more projects and group work activities in the classroom. He said, “it gets boring after a while” if the same thing goes on in the classroom day after day.
There are times when students may feel their thoughts and opinions are not valued much at school, but there are many opportunities to have one’s opinions heard and valued here at Lincoln; one just has to look for them. Even though not every student was able to be a part of Student Forum, it is still important to recognize the effort that Lincoln is putting in to try to enhance students’ experiences at Lincoln High School by gathering real data and feedback from actual Lincoln students.
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