Forum Report- 1/24/14
Planning for the future seemed to be the overarching theme of Tuesday’s lunch forum. While ideas weren’t flowing in the beginning, participants managed to fill the rest of the lunch period with talk about Exhibition Day, a way to organize finals week, and getting elective classes to run next year.
In order to improve upon past Exhibition Days, several suggestions were proposed, including one to release the schedule of vendors and exhibitions beforehand. Additionally, Forum participants expressed concern that the number of food vendors was becoming overwhelming and proposed to limit their presence, spread out food-vending booths, or group them all in one place.
The necessity of advertising the opportunities students have on Exhibition Day (especially to freshmen) was also addressed, and students and faculty both expressed a desire to emphasize new kinds of exhibitions that would showcase students’ talents rather than just aim to make a profit. “It’s not as fun if people are trying to sell you stuff…it’s called Exhibition Day for a reason,” said senior Aaron Steger. Exhibition Day is scheduled May 21.
With the stress over this semester’s upcoming finals, students at the Forum were hopeful that with some planning, next semester’s finals wouldn’t be as daunting. Requests were made for teachers to organize who gives finals on what days, possibly by means of a Google Doc, to avoid long, exam-filled days.
No conclusive decisions were made, and some students, like junior Ty Goering, said they actually preferred to have all their finals on the same day. While actually shifting the school schedule to accommodate finals is out of the picture for this year, “it’s something we could propose for the future,” said social science teacher Kerry Koda.
The time to begin signing up for next year’s classes is fast approaching, and classes like AP Art History, Calculus III, AP Biology, AP Comparative Politics, and AP Music Theory are all running this year due to a high level of signups. However, with a smaller incoming senior class, many are wondering if these options will be available to students next year.
Forum participants discussed the tactics that could be used to encourage students to sign up, including Facebook groups, the Elective Fair on Feb. 7, and counselor presentations. “We need more people if we want these classes to run,” said junior Stacy Li.
