Many new and exciting ideas, including homecoming court and schoolwide community building,  were discussed at the first Forum meeting of the year. On Tuesday, Sept. 6, 59 students and six staff members piled into physics teacher George Stimson’s room to share ideas on how to improve our school.    The first topic brought to the floor was the name of the upcoming café run by the business management class. The choices were The Mosaic and  The Palette;  students will have an opportunity to vote on their favorite in homeroom sometime this week. One topic that spurred a good amount of discussion was that of homecoming court. Some were concerned that having students vote for their peers turns it into a popularity contest, which is not what SDA wants to promote, they said.  A suggested solution was to change the name to “Academy Spirit”  and other  “Class Characters” rather than Homecoming King and Queen  to better encompass the spirit of the school. Another idea was to change the court announcements from an assembly to a lunch activity.                 Students were also concerned that senior specific activities detract from the feeling of school-wide community. “ I feel like senior-only activities detract from the feeling of closeness between all the grades, so I think that everyone should be included in ASB activitiers like Senior Out,” said senior Derrik Marow. Activities such as chalking parking spaces were thought to create a hierarchy among the separate grades, and many thought that all drivers should have the right to park where they choose. An idea for improvement was that seniors chalk other areas such as spots in senior court rather than parking spaces.                 The last major issue discussed how to create more of a feeling of community throughout the school. One idea was having lunch activities, like concerts, to keep more people together on campus during lunch. Another was to develop a buddy system that would connect upper and underclassmen to create a feeling of unity between the grades.                  Students who attended the meeting got to discuss many issues concerning our school, homecoming, senior activities, and schoolwide community. The ideas will continue to flow at the forum meeting sometime next  month.