The first week of school is filled with excitement, confusion, annoyance, happiness, and plenty of frustration! Some roots of the frustration are schedule changes, the new alarm system in the front office, the parking lots, and the lack of conference periods. From what I’ve been told by students, many people have had to get schedule changes. The new system is set up so you have to press a button for the doors to be unlocked in the office during school hours. The parking lots are a disaster with the solar panel construction. Having every day without conference confuses some students and is a disadvantage to those who already need the extra time and/or help in class.

Schedule mix-ups happen every year. The goal is to have 80% of 1st choices to be put on the schedules. Ashley Schlegel, a junior at Sahuaro, gets here every morning at 7:15 just to get a parking spot. She said, “I hate it. The construction is awful and the traffic control doesn’t help. It makes things slower.” Well, good news students! The construction crew has been working hard and the parking lots should be done around early October, but there isn’t a set ending date yet. Principal Estrella said they were “very pleased with the progress and how they have adjusted to our needs”.

As for conference periods, they only started this week because Mr. Estrella and the other staff members wanted to crack down on expectations and guidelines for students. By breaking everything down, such as fire drills, classroom behavior, and more, students will have a better understanding of what they should do and what consequences could follow if they don’t. “I didn’t want new students to use conference periods incorrectly,” says Mr. Estrella. Considering that serious infractions happen frequently during conference, the rules had to be enforced to everyones’ understandings. All students are wanted in a classroom during conference for safety reasons such as fire drills or an intruder on campus, which brings me to the school ID’s. As much of a nuisance they may be, it will make lives easier if they are worn. In case of an emergency, staff needs to know who are students that should be on campus and vice versa. Principal Estrella said the steps to teaching about behavior and rules is, “First, you encourage people and teach them why they should be doing this, provide rewards for those who follow instructions, then lastly enforce the student code of conduct.”