WOODBURY — What is one thing upperclassmen look forward to when getting that title? Their privileges.
But when this school year started, juniors arrived back at NHS and were surprised to find out that they were not grouped in with the upperclassmen privileges.
“As soon as we got to school as upperclassmen finally, all the privileges of being upperclassmen were taken away, so it kind of defeated the excitement of it all,” Nonnewaug junior Noah Zupan said. “It’s dumb because everyone was looking forward to them.”
When the pandemic hit, many of the original rules in place got changed to fit the needs of the students during those times. With the COVID exceptions no longer in place, principal Mykal Kuslis thought it was time to get normalcy back into the campus.
“A lot of the things, especially the juniors having those privileges, were put in place during COVID,” said Kuslis, “like the final exemption privileges, the leave return, the early dismissal, which were all more of a way to get people out of the building at the time.”
Kuslis said the thought behind making junior year a bit more rigorous, including adding the new additional eighth period, was really to help next year’s seniors shape their senior year.
“What we are hoping is with these eight-period days and juniors not being able to leave, the hope is that they take more classes,” said Kuslis, “so by the time they are seniors, they only have a few classes they need to take to really make their senior year as special as possible.”
Although the idea behind making senior year as special as possible for current juniors, they still have some negative feelings about the changes that were made.
“I just don’t feel great about not having the same privileges as in previous years,” said junior Jocelyn Coscia. “I cant leave to go to work or go and work with my horse, which is what I was really planning on doing this year when I planned out my schedule last year.”
