Ways of introducing new students and staff into SDA culture and increasing school spirit were the main subjects brought up at Thursday’s lunchtime Forum.

The Forum is a student-led discussion that takes place about once a month where all members of the school, teachers included, can voice their opinions about topics relating to SDA and work together to solve potential issues.

New Students and teachers of SDA
Senior Stacy Li noted how there was a perennial problem of how to introduce new freshmen into the school culture and asked the rest of the Forum to come up with ideas on how to fix it. “People feel like they’re attacking the freshmen, and the freshmen feel like they’re being attacked,” said Li.

The proposals included mixing some classes so that underclassmen can interact more with older students, having some kind of activity focused on freshmen, and reviving Senior Citizens, a club created to allow seniors to grow SDA culture while also, according to their Facebook page, “incorporating and setting an example for the underclassmen.”

There was also discussion of expanding the October Club Fair from the Gym to the entire campus in order to gain more visibility, and in turn, gain a wider diversity of club members that will be active with the school. “Clubs [during Club Fair] should be less about recruitment and more about involvement” is how one student summarized the goal.

In addition to the freshmen, some Forum members proposed that the new teachers should have some kind of introduction to the school with one student saying, “the [new] teachers should be exposed to SDA as well as them being exposed to us.”  Students brought up ideas to have some kind of Forum-sponsored scavenger hunt, where teachers and students would have to find specific objects across the campus, or to allow students to join staff in Teacher Out.

Increased Interest in the Forum

In the same vein of including freshmen in school activities, participants discussed how to bring more underclassmen and students of all kind into the Forum meetings. A large part of the issue is that there is a general lack of information about what the Forum is, with one student remarking, “When I was a freshman, I thought it was an actual event at The Forum.”

Students are also worried that underclassmen might feel like they have nothing to contribute to the meetings since they’re new.  Some suggested making a permanent Facebook page for the Forum and noting whenever school events were created from Forum ideas. Social studies teacher Kerry Koda suggested creating a school-wide survey where students can voice issues they see. Therefore, even students who can’t or don’t want to attend Forum meetings can still have their opinions heard. As one student said, “The forum is about being involved in the school.”

Mustang reporter Sophie Peeler also contributed to this story.