During the school year, West Salem High School hosts several school wide assemblies that show students’ pride and morale for the school. But do students really feel the connection that assemblies bring, or is it ultimately just a waste of time?
An assembly is a time when students are all put together to show what West Salem High School has to offer. They bring energy and connection that some students appreciate. Junior Charlotte Kohler says, “I love the energy. Yeah, I’m an extrovert, so I like all the people coming together and having a good time.”
But some students feel assemblies are a waste of time and think this time could be replaced by something more useful. Kohler says, “I definitely think that like some of my friends are like why would we do this? We could go to class. We could sit in advisory or do breakouts or whatever.”
Emery Thayer, a sophomore, says, “It’s taken an hour out of the day and all you’re doing is really sitting there unless they ask students to come down and some people can find that really boring.” Other students don’t even like the fact that they are forced to sit down for long periods of time when alternatively they could be doing something like breakouts.
Some students even decide that they don’t want to go to assemblies, Kohler says, “Other people will be like, oh, no, I escaped. I went to Starbucks or I sat in the library.” This could inevitably cause a problem of students leaving when they’re not supposed to which students and staff don’t want to deal with.
But during the assemblies can students even understand what is going on? Thayer says, “I usually can unless I’m not focused but they have the mic and you can hear what’s going on.” However, not all students will be actively atoned to the assembly so there could very well be a problem in understanding what is going on.
Assemblies can be a time to build Titan spirit for all students and staff. However, from the perspectives of some students, they are just time for students to either escape school or be incredibly bored at the attempt to hype them up for the pride of West.
