Do you think we should go to school November 1st? The last time Halloween was on a Friday was 2014; the next time it will be on a Friday will be 2025. So, as you can see, for the next five years – then after another 11 years after that – students, teachers, and administration will have to go to school the day after celebrating their Halloween festivities. (not including Halloween on Saturdays) Halloween is a once a year opportunity to dress up as your favorite celebrity, character, or monster; go to haunted houses; stay up late and binge watch horror movies; or throw Halloween parties. Even though Halloween does not have religious purposes, it’s just like any other holiday, and we deserve at least one day off for it. If Knox County would allow this, students and teachers get the extra rest they need after a holiday like such. Teachers and students could use the extra day to catch up on the sleep they’ve sleep they’ve missed because trick or treating is a popular event that happens on Halloween. Students could take the time to work on unfinished homework or projects. Don’t forget that many teachers have children that they take trick or treating; and some students have to take younger siblings. Overall, I think students and teachers should not have to go to school on November 1st. 

With 80 minute long classes and little time in between, many students in the Carter Community scramble to find time to use the restroom in between class periods or schedule a time they’d be able to talk to a teacher about a subject they didn’t understand. Some are left interrupting their classes  to use the bathroom to avoid receiving a tardy slip for it. This creates a problem within the classroom and prevents students from participating in class time, though, there is a simple solution. By adding a few minutes extra in between periods many students would have the ability to use the bathroom, get prepared for their next class, or just to catch their breath and lower stress. 

While students travel to and from classes throughout the day, many are left to wonder how much time they have left to make it to class on time or if they have a minute to spare to use the bathroom. Most are left with two options, they could use the bathroom and risk being late to their next period or wait and potentially interrupt their learning to step out for something that’s a human need. Neither option is favorable, but this could be resolved with a few extra minutes added to the 7 minutes we have. It would allow teachers to get through their lesson uninterrupted and permit students time to use the bathroom.  

While some may argue that students would abuse that extra time or that it’s redundant, in many recent studies, it has been proven that  frequent breaks in between learning allows students to retain more focus and remember more of what they were taught. By giving students a break to recall the information they were given, the students have demonstrated higher productivity, a boost in brain function and a decrease in stress/anxiety levels. These aren’t redundant results, they are the reality of allowing students to learn in the best environment using better techniques. Increasing the gap time would show similar results and leave less of an excuse for any student to show up later to their next period. 

To motivate Carter’s learning environment and to decrease the stress among students, I believe that Carter should have longer breaks, even if by just two to three extra minutes. There are various reasons to pull from to increase the time and, in exchange, enrichment could be shortened to match the time taken out throughout the day or the time before first could be lessened to provide for the longer breaks. I think this could greatly increase the morale in our school system and allow teachers and students alike a well needed moment before their next period.

Projects are often assigned by teachers for students to take home and complete on their own time; but what exactly is the purpose of these projects? Students have regular homework, sports, other classes, and their own personal lives to deal with, let alone having huge projects to work on whenever they have any sort of free time. Projects are unnecessary and usually irrelevant to the curriculum going on in that class.  For example, when learning about a Greek tragedy in English, it seems odd to be doing a book report outside of school on a completely different topic. Projects seem as though they are just large point activities that have a lot of input on a student’s grade, but little to do with their actual learning capabilities. It is important to teach kids responsibility; however, overloading a student with endless tasks is redundant, especially since most of the time the student has work for other classes in the meantime. Too much stress can have negative impacts on students that can end up being counterproductive to the responsibility trying to be taught, like symptoms of stress. On the topic of school projects, sophomore, Regan McKeehan says:  “I think that they are beneficial sometimes but overused by teachers who don’t have enough time in class to do all they want.” Projects that are simply to be taken home and completed with little relevance to the teacher’s curriculum are the main issue. Projects that are started in class that students just do not finish are, however, the students’ problems to take care of. There are some types of projects that are effective to students learning, like research projects for a topic in science, but these projects are often for much lower points and are not seen as often. Overall, projects are not a bad learning tool in general; however, relevance and balance are important to making sure the projects assigned are more beneficial to the student rather than harmful.

Does the public display of affection(PDA) in the halls disgusted you? The public display of affection here at carter high school is beyond what it used to be. Student couples in the hall three years ago only hugged or did a pop kiss. Now the student couples kiss each other’s necks, make-out, etc. While some public display of affection is okay that takes it way too far. Hugging and a quick pop kiss is whatever but eating each other’s face and kissing necks should be conducted elsewhere, not in the stairwells at school. I am not the only student who thinks this, A senior student says “ some couples take the public display of affection way too far. It’s great you love your significant other but it’s not eye-pleasing to see couples doing that while I’m walking to class it always makes me sick”. Meeting your significant other during class change is great but you don’t have to suck faces. If you would not do it in front of your grandmother do not do it in the halls. If these students studied their books as much as they suck each other’s faces their grades would be at least above average. 

Every month Carter High School chooses both a student and a teacher who are considered to have stood out that month. 

Miss Davenport, the librarian, is in charge of organizing  the student of the month, and she explained that this process starts on a document that she creates and sends to all the teachers, and they use it to vote for their favorite students. When asked why she thinks that choosing a student and teacher of the month is important, she said, “Choosing a student of the month not only gives hope to our students but also to the teachers that are able to see their hard work reflected on someone”. 

“The selection of the students of the month is pretty easy,” explains Miss Wave, the teacher in charge of choosing the winner, “We ask teachers to nominate three students of each grade and once we have received all the nomination we count them, the winner is the one with the most nominations” She also added that if two students are tied they would just put both names in a hat and take one out. 

In addition to the student of the month we also have athlete of the month. In this category, however they are two winners: a female and a male. 

After they have their selection the rest is pretty simple. They check the behaviour and attendance of this student during the year and if everything is okay, then they will receive their prize, a cookie,  and their picture is shown on the TVs.

Students that attend Carter High School have the option of graduating early in December of their senior year. Students who wish to graduate early have a few requirements. Current juniors who want to graduate early in December of their senior year must be on track to have twenty-eight credits by the end of the second semester of their senior year. The student must also be on the way to or have already completed their Elective Focus and their Core Classes. Students must have also taken care of all money owed. Finally, the students must have the contract form turned in. The early graduation contract form must be signed and turned in by May 1st, 2019. The contract form is located in the counseling office. A senior graduating this December (who wished not to be named) states “Early Graduation is an amazing and helpful thing if you have plans for after high school. You can start college in January or can start a full-time job.” Another student who also is graduating early says “ Early graduation is a helpful thing but it also can be bad, because kids who graduate early with no goals on becoming something can become criminals. Early graduation is good for kids with a plan.”

The Juniors of Carter High have to take ACT Prep in hopes of raising their score. The Seniors have already completed ACT Prep and the ACT. Now it is time for the Juniors to shine and start preparing to take it in March. When asked how he felt about ACT Prep, Carter High Junior Luiz Matias says, “I feel like ACT Prep is fine and I understand what the schools and teachers are trying to do. It’s so we can get a better score. But I also feel that some students won’t take it seriously.” He feels that even though the school is trying to help us be successful, kids won’t be serious and it won’t end up helping them. When asked if he thought his score would go up, he says, “I do think it’s going to go up, and I hope it at least brings it to a twenty-two.” The ACT Prep has many people hoping it’ll bring their score up. When asked how long Junior ACT Prep will be, Algebra teacher and ACT Prep instructor Ms. Atchley says, “It will be four and a half weeks long for each section.” Juniors will have four weeks for math, four weeks for reading, four weeks for English, and four weeks for science, whereas the Seniors only had two weeks for each subject. When asked if she thinks it’ll be easier to teach Juniors, Ms. Atchley says, “I don’t know if I would say it would be easier. I am glad we had the opportunity to do a Crash Course ACT Prep with the Seniors, but I am looking forward to having more time to prepare the Juniors to be successful and improve their previous score.”

There are some trends that have been noticed around Carter High. Some of these include fall clothing which consists of ripped jeans, heeled boots or converses, and sweatshirts. When asked what her favorite trend was, sophomore Jayde Trammel says that, “wearing converses are my favorite trend right now, I wear them almost every day to school.” A few more older and so last season trends include, wearing scrunchies on your wrist, and chocos. Scruchies were popular over the summer when the VSCO girls were born, but the cooler weather has killed that trending summer style as well as chocos. So if you’re thinking that these things are still popular then you might want to rethink that idea. 

The Robotics Club is an after school program hosted by Mr.Adamson in his classroom, 622. They will be building and programing robots to do certain things and then enter them into the VEX Robotics competition.The club currently has 7 students but they wish to have more since the competition teams have to be 5-6 members. I asked him why he decided to start the Robotics Club, and he replied, “Before I became a teacher, I did quite a bit of programming and electronics work.  Those skills transferred surprisingly well to many seemingly unrelated aspects of life (concisely communicating ideas, giving instructions, practical problem solving, etc). In addition, the operation of a robotics club requires students to exercise important social skills (marketing, team work, leadership, fundraising). This club gives the students at Carter another avenue to develop these skills in a context outside of the classroom.” The club is going to be competing at VEX Competitions.(2019-20) They will mostly be working with VEX Robotics products.  That includes the hardware needed to construct the robot and the software used to program, and operate the robot. I also asked how they got the equipment for the program and he said, “We were lucky enough to qualify for a grant that covered our startup costs and equipment.” If you are interested in joining the robotics club you can talk to Mr.Adamson in room 622 in the freshman academy.

Want to know how to survive highschool? Just ask the seniors. They’ve been here for four years. They know the school like the back of their hands. They know the quick ways to classes, the secrets to maintaining a good GPA, and how to deal with relationships between friends and teachers. We really don’t want you repeating our mistakes, so here’s a guide to how to survive high school. 

When arriving, if you believe you have to get a boyfriend or girlfriend, and have to have your life figured out as soon as you walk through the doors: you thought wrong!

High school is so much more than that, it’s a very social and challenging environment that prepares you for your future. As freshmen, most of us believed that it was a breeze, we did not study, nor did we really have to try to achieve the grades we wanted. Yet as we got into sophomore and junior year, we quickly realized our old ways of doing things were not going to cut it. We had to apply ourselves, stay up late studying, attend tutoring and make up tests. High school is far from easy and we are here to help you succeed. 

Jacob Clifton a senior suggests, “Challenge yourself to take AP classes. Don’t try to just get by; push yourself!” High school can be rough. It’s full of stress and other obstacles, yet you just have to keep going and move forward. “Cheer up, chap, you’ve only got three years left,” said Zack Smith a senior. Freshman year and the next following years can be awkward, with annoying braces, breakups and the struggle to keep your grades up. But it can be a lot easier having great friends. If there was any advice most important to give, it would be to stick by the people who you care about, those who support you, and make you happy. Having reliable and loyal friends are how you survive the final four-year transition to adulthood.