This past Wednesday, November 17, during our advisory we had to sit around and talk about issues around our school. A lot was said, well I know in my advisory a lot was said.

I think a lot of good points were brought up, and they need to be brought to everyone’s attention. If anything I want people to know that there are real issues in our school, and most of them are just being overlooked.

I have heard from almost everyone in my advisory that they don’t feel safe at school anymore. Why is that? It’s because too many students are getting away with things like being disrespectful to teachers and their peers, getting into fights, vandalizing school property.  These kids are being punished for a day or two then brought back into our classrooms. Don’t get me wrong I understand that it is hard on the staff and administration to deal with these kids, but more needs to be done.

Students don’t care if they get into fights or any type of trouble anymore, because they don’t mind going to ISS. This is a real problem, if students are liking thier punishments then obvisoly something needs to be changed. And hey I don’t know everything that is going on behind the scenes – the administrators might be trying to fix the problem as we speak.

During our advisory we were asked to give a grade to the students on how well we think they follow rules. My class decided to grade Hancock as a whole, and we came to an agreement that Hancock is around a F. It is not only up to the school staff to fix this problem. If our students are feeling like this too, then we need to do something about it. I know you can’t do anything about safety, but as a student you can just be nicer to people, do your school work, and avoid conflict.

I know avoiding conflict is harder than you think, but if something happens be the bigger person. We are in high school, it is time to grow up, we should not have a fight every other day. In our advisory we talked about how we are embarrassed to tell people where we go. This is because we are known for the trashy school that fights a lot.

Being here since freshman year and now being a senior, Hancock never used to be this bad. Don’t get me wrong we still have fun, and can enjoy our days, but it definitely isn’t the same as my freshman year. That says a lot. I think staff and administrators are doing their jobs, but I feel like things need to start changing. The students, well we need to grow up and see that not everybody is out to get us.

I think everybody should work hard, have fun, and enjoy their time at Hancock. We shouldn’t be embarrassed to tell people where we go to school. We are the change, so let’s get working.