When most people start high school they’re either nervous or ready to get the four years over with. Thinking back to when I started high school almost 3 years ago, I mostly remember how excited I was to start a new chapter in my life. I expected that high school would be everything that TV cracked it up to be. I really wasn’t nervous about high school at all, but now that my junior year is mostly over, I’m starting to get a little scared.

People who have graduated say that high school goes by really fast. I find that the saying doesn’t really stick until you’re 16 or 17, at the end of your junior year. You then realize that you’re basically one year away from “the real world.” Senior year can be scary, but mostly, it’s a year of relaxation and finalization. Given the fact that seniors will be the oldest in the school and are will soon leave, they should get perks throughout the year. Nothing big like a parade at the end of the school year, just small incentives as rewards for all the hard work they’ve done to get this far.

For our school, we haven’t had a senior class before the 2015-16 school year. Although the school is not like your typical high school, the up and coming seniors want the same perks as other high schools. I interviewed the assistant high school principal, Patty Ulrich, to ask her about senior year and what’s been discussed so far as to perks for seniors. For next school year, there will be a senior prom, which will most likely happen around April. Also, there is a chance that it will be at a hotel versus at school like all past school dances. I also asked her about graduation. There’s been discussion about possibly having a special something to commemorate the students whom have been going to GCAA since it opened, but nothing is set in stone. She states that for us, senior year will be easier, and that we’ll have more freedom with the classes we take. Depending on your pathway, some students will have an “Upstone Project” that’s bigger than a final, that will take all of second semester to work on.

Some schools, very few I believe, offer off campus lunch for some seniors. This is something that I, and others, have been hoping would become available to us senior year. Due to liability issues, the school can’t do that because as long as we’re at school, they’re responsible for our safety. On the plus side, there have been discussions about us getting class rings, but everything is still somewhat up in the air, and we’ll just have to wait and see what comes for us as seniors.