Assemblies Generate Unsurprising Reaction
The Large Auditorium, the class meetings were held in, in the start of the school year.
The meetings were bigger, but the results were predictable.
For the first time in years, students assembled as full graduating classes in the Large Auditorium for the annual back-to-school meetings Aug. 26-27 rather than meeting in smaller groups according to assistant principal and guidance counselor assignments.
Interim Principal James Reed felt it was important to have the meeting in a class-wide settings.
“[Reed] wanted an opportunity to address each class as a whole,” said Assistant Principal Sara Chengelis. “Especially since we have two new assistant principals, to make sure that everyone was introduced and everybody saw all the faces of all the counselors and the new assistant principals.”
Reed talked about his life in Shaker — the former Cleveland Heights High School administrator said he lived in Shaker all his life and that his four children are Shaker graduates — before going on to discuss rules and his expectations for this school year. He encouraged students to take advantage of the opportunities Shaker provides.
“It is my belief that none of those opportunities can occur without all of us understanding what our particular roles and responsibilities are here, to make this place beneficial for all of us,” he said during the sophomore assembly Aug. 26,
The meetings differed slightly as the speakers tailored their messages to each class. In the tenth grade meeting, John Moore, IB coordinator, talked about the IB personal project. During the senior meeting, Matthew Bartley, senior class adviser, shared expectations for senior lounge behavior.
However, students felt that the assemblies and their emphasis on rules were unnecessary.
Junior Kailee Zernick said that it was a “waste of time, because the teachers already said the same things.”
“I thought it was kind of almost unneeded,” said freshman Christos Loannou. “It basically covered everything I knew, and that is probably because we have the same tardy policy at the middle school.”
Junior Glora Ng agreed. “It was a waste of educational time. It messed up the schedule. The first week the bell schedule was all confusing. It was too long, we already knew half the stuff, and the new rules aren’t great.”
