Everyday at school has been another surprise. One day we hear that all girls will be pulled from class to watch a movie and the next we discover finals start on a Friday. Not all the surprises are bad and not all exciting, but they all start as rumors through the grapevine that I never know if they are true until I see it for myself or ask a prime source. Maybe that’s just me though. But I am an eager-to-please journalist who likes to share cold hard facts. That may be pushing it for a Skier Scribbler staff member, but I do know that most students don’t mind just listening to the whispers in the halls. It’s no different than all the gossip they hear anyway right?

Lately, our school has become a place of confusion. It seems to me no one has tried to keep the students on the same page as faculty and administration. Don’t get me wrong, some of my teachers really have been trying to reach out to their students to tell them the latest news, but at that point we have heard so many jumbled versions of the truth, we will be lucky to remember what the heck is going on.

Because I’m a second semester senior, I have been trying to ignore this, as I know that I will be out of here soon enough. But I care about AHS and the path it takes. I know that without a solid way to communicate, everyone will be angry and hopefully the students will choose not to ignore it like I did for some time.

The students deserve to be updated with what is going on around them, and above them. The teachers have been working hard to collaborate with students but we need a more formal way to hear news. On our brand new sixty-inch TVs, we could post the finals new schedule, a picture of the new Assistant Principal, or a quick blurb about what we will be seeing next year as far as the new math schedule.

Before winter break, we heard on the announcements, “code blue,” though our teachers had never heard that code before. We panicked in lack of knowing the meaning behind those words. It was unfair to put students and faculty in a state of unease simply because there was no communication. After the fact, a good way to keep the gossip out of the halls would have been to speak to the students and faculty about what happened and why they chose to do what they did. If everyone had known, there would have been less concerns.

Communicating is about being clear and straightforward with others. We are taught our whole lives to avoid gossip and to go directly to the source before spreading rumors. It would be nice if the source came to us.

If we had assemblies we could all hear the same thing at the same time. As students, we want to hear the “why” not just the “what”, so assemblies would be a great way to explain. The time to explain will allow students to know the whole story before getting angered with the news. It doesn’t need to be a discussion, just an explanation. For this school to maintain its strong community we need to work with each other and I think a good way to start is communicating.