Jia Nair
Senior support: As freshman acclimate, seniors answer their questions
Toward the beginning of the school year, freshmen are flooded with an overwhelming amount of new things. They only ask for one thing: answers. Some freshmen are unsure of whom to turn to with these questions. Luckily, that is where OH seniors can step in. Two in particular supported the responses to frequent-freshman questions: OH seniors Olivia Krupinski and Jwirya Abouhiba. Specifically, OH freshman Autumn Moe wondered a common question posed by her fellow new Panthers: what is the high school workload is like? Krupinski, who has earned a 4.0 GPA, said that the workload is dependent on how you handle it, and “if you do not do your homework, [[or]] if you hold it off for so long, you're gonna have a bigger workload.”
The classroom canvas: The value of room decor in learning environments
For many students, the classroom environment becomes more familiar to them than their own bedrooms. Some students are taught in classrooms that lack decoration, but many teachers do take the initiative to decorate their classrooms. Which raises the question, good-looking room or not, what difference does it make? OH Multi-lingual teacher, Karen Ferguson, answers that teachers decorate their classrooms because “it just feels good to be in a space that [[is]] positive [[and]] inviting.”
Stepping into a story: Independent reading invigorates classrooms, engages students
Almost every day, the students in OH are told to pull out a book of their choice and read it. As the school year begins, teachers have resumed implementing independent reading in their classes. “There are so many benefits to reading in general [[and]] it doesn't all have to be academic reading,” said OH English teacher Kristen Wood. After implementing independent reading in English courses in 2022, teachers and students are seeing it as time well-spent.