Senior Privileges: Why CHS should give back Senior Privileges
September 22, 2022
Senior privileges have been taken away for the 2022-2023 school year and we want to talk about it. We believe that seniors should have the ability to have their privileges back because they are responsible. Seniors are about to finish school and getting those back could be a token of appreciation for all the hard work they have had to do for the past 4 years in high school. The courtyard was open to seniors last year but now it’s closed to the class of 2023 and we want to find out why.
The senior courtyard is a place that is exclusive to seniors to eat lunch and to basically have their own space. Last year, the courtyard was open to seniors but this year it isn’t. We would like for it to reopen as seniors deserve it. The courtyard is kind of like a reward for almost finishing school and we personally think it’s not a huge ask. In the past, the courtyard had been used to its fullest and seniors had a great time there. We think that in order for the courtyard to be used to the fullest, it should be reopened.
Lunch release had been a senior privilege for many years up until this year. Lunch release is when seniors are able to leave during lunch to be able to bring food from other places. This year, CHS has prohibited the ability of seniors doing that. A big reason for people doing that is because of the school lunch that is provided. The lunch isn’t that great and people end up not being able to eat because they don’t want to get the school lunch and they aren’t able to go get food from another place.
Mr. Pitt, Principal of Charlottesville High School, was kind enough to answer a couple questions that we had. When asked about the courtyard being closed, he said that “there is no supervision” and also how they would be able to “make that happen”. He said that he “isn’t saying no to the idea”, but just the idea of making it happen is what’s making the administration hesitate. Mr. Pitt was willing to also talk about Lunch Release as well and here are some of the things he said all summed up. He basically said “he isn’t against the idea”, but he doesn’t know how it will “pan out”.
On the 31st of August we released a survey asking a couple of questions to seniors across CHS. After a couple of weeks of it being posted we recorded all of the data from it. For privacy reasons we will not be saying their names, but we will be saying some of their quotes.
One of the questions we asked was “How do you feel about senior privileges being taken away?” Most of the responses were the same. But each one had its own tone and voice. Some were expressing anger or annoyance, while others were just explaining their feelings.
For example “I am along with other seniors who are very disappointed with the senior courtyard being taken away. It was something we were all really looking forward to and to have it taken away was frustrating. The 23′ class has not been a true year of high school and we have had so much taken away throughout our high school career.” What this person said truly shows what they feel about the problem and what they expected during their senior year. Another person wrote “I feel angry and frustrated about it. I don’t think it’s fair to take our seniors’ privileges away when seniors in the past had the privileges we’ve been longing to have.” This person shows how angry they are about the problem. They think it’s unfair and they also brought up the fact that seniors in the past had the same privileges seniors want now.
There were many other responses to our survey but in order to save time, we will show the results of what everyone thinks about the problem.
According to the first chart, people would rather have Lunch release because they think that people would have way more options to lunch rather than having school lunch which isn’t all that great. In the second chart we asked if the school had been fair about senior privileges and as a result they said no. A person wrote that it was fair “Because the seniors last year got the senior courtyard and got to leave during lunch”. In the third chart we asked if seniors should have access to the courtyard or to be able to have lunch and 97% of people said that seniors should. As a result of all the data we collected, everyone pretty much thinks that seniors should get their privileges back.
So after all of this data from our survey we’ve concluded that almost all seniors who did this survey want senior privileges. Specifically Senior courtyard and lunch release. Now sure there’s way more than 33 seniors in the school but the majority of seniors in this survey want senior privileges back and I bet most seniors in this school want privileges back as well.
