Smooth Day at Madison High as School Year Begins

Mary Meyer is glad to be back to back at this year….as an upperclassman. “It’s kind of nice being one of the older kids," she said as she maneuvered classes with other students during the first day back to school.

Because she really enjoys history, she is most excited about her AP (advanced placement ) history class this year, and has already started checking out colleges. Fellow junior Alec Waksman said this year will be tough with the looming SATs and decisions on colleges.

Those who are seniors, 205 of them, will have to keep their nose to the grindstone at least for the first semester, doubling that work while applying to colleges.  Alex Himmelsteib, who signed on for five AP classes, said, “school is fine," but admitted the caseload would be “challenging.”

Greg Robertson, MHS principal, said the class of 2012 is “great.”  Not only are the students “focused academically” but have been active in the service portion of the high school program and for the most part “are very respectful.”

That said, it was the beginning of the year, new schedules to get used to, some class rearranging and several freshmen who were looking for the bathroom.

Brett Levine, director of guidance, said the pandemonium was at a minimum as some students waited to talk to their counselors. Were they ready for the season of college applications? “We’re getting there,” he said.

Junior Layton Lassiter made a schedule change after he realized he was “tired of Spanish." After three years of it, he enrolled in Italian, a language he has heard all his life anyway. He wore a black T-shirt and cargo shorts while friend Darnell St. Germain looked a bit dressier with a button-down blue shirt and khakis, new Nike Flight sneakers and a “snap back” hat with Orlando Magic logo.

Very few students are wearing the low riders pants so popular a decade ago that parents and teachers never thought they’d see the end of. These days the look is preppier although athletic gear never seems to go out of style.

One new program is a proposed digital portfolio that would allow parents throghout the district to access their child’s online grade books and assignments. Robertson said many schools are already on board with similar programs and the program allows “less guessing on the part of parents, more information and less need of regular contact with teachers.”

While parents may welcome this tool, at least a couple of students were wary. One honors student said she still wanted her privacy. Meyer said her mother might suggest she do homework earlier “rather than when I planned to do it,” but Waksman said he didn’t really mind it “because I would tell them what I got on a test anyway.”

While that program is in the works, refinements are being made to the anti-bullying guidelines already in place with the district, but altered somewhat with state anti-bullying legislation that went into effect Sept. 1.

That law places “more requirements” on the schools, “but does nothing to change our overall [continuing] to prohibit bullying in this building.” Robertson said there is a “message loud and clear that we’re not tolerating that kind of behavior.”