At The Seven Hills School, students and families are provided with a supportive environment that fosters academic, social, and personal growth. This atmosphere allows students to explore their passions and interests, providing them with a good school experience. However, within this experience, a significant amount of the student body has begun to voice their opinions on potential changes that would further improve the school. These insights reflect a collective desire for positive enhancements within the school.
Ever since the school stopped catering food during the Covid-19 outbreak, the introduction of food catering has been a re-emerging topic of discussion among students. Prior to the pandemic, Seven Hills provided catered lunch from many of the local restaurants. Senior Megha Gaitonde said, “I think it’s something that our students really enjoyed in the past.” Many of the students agree that reviving the old custom of catering food for lunch would bring a positive change to the school’s environment. There would be a wider range of food options for the students to choose from and provides the student body with something good to look forward to during their school day. Gaitonde said, “I think that catering would definitely buzz up some more excitement around the school and get students more excited for lunch time. It’s also just fun.” However, such transformation would require constant planning and funding from the higher-ups. Catering food for the entire high school is a complicated process and would take a long time for the plan to be seen through. Although this change will take a while to be set into motion, the potential benefits outweigh the challenges. The reintroduction of food catering would not only provide students with a much needed variation in food options, but also serve as a source of enrichment to the school’s environment.
Another highly discussed topic among most of the upper-school students are the rules regarding lanyards. Many students have experienced punishments for walking around the school without their lanyards on their necks. Freshman Solomon Ware said, “I think the lanyard rule is too strict, and we shouldn’t get lunch detentions for not wearing them all the time.” Many students voice similar concerns due to the great amount of punishments being handed out to those not wearing their lanyards on their necks. If lanyards were not required to be on every student’s neck, but rather just in their possession, there would be a significant decrease in the amount of students in lunch detention. Ware said, “With less people in lunch detention, there would be more time for students to create social interaction with the other students during lunch.”
Along with the lanyard rule, the library has enforced strict policies on the students that control the noise level. Although noise level may need to be controlled, the rule poses a challenge for the students who are working together. Gaitonde said, “When people are talking with friends or collaborating on a project, they may struggle to stay under the noise level and face some punishments for it.” Many students believe that although the library should be a quiet place, it should also be a place where students are allowed to converse while doing their work. Because the Commons are usually noisy and the study hall room is a designated quiet zone, the library is where most students go to complete their work while socializing with friends. By allowing students to converse amongst themselves at a moderate level while doing their work, it gives them the opportunity to work together and socialize in a comfortable setting.
Another common change students want to see is an increase in outdoor seating options. Freshman Senator Chiara Dunson said, “Outdoor seating is a problem many of the students were challenged by during the early school season. There was not enough seating for the upcoming ninth graders to sit outside, and when they tried to sit in the designated Middle School lunch area, they would be continuously kicked out.” As better weather begins to come back around, there becomes a greater need for more picnic benches outside. More seating allows all students to enjoy the nice weather and can lead to more socialization. Dunson said, “It’s definitely something that will help the school environment since more outdoor seating allows students to sit together, which makes the student body more connected.”
Student council is currently undergoing the process of solving this issue, but because of the many events during our school year, the process of solving these problems is pushed back, but when time is available, they refocus on those problems. Dunson said, “A lot of things come up while in the process of solving these issues like planning for spirit days and dances. So things become pushed back a bit when we’re trying to focus on these things. But after these events are over, we go straight to trying to fix those problems.”
Although not many problems have been assessed by the student government, they have been doing a lot to uplift our school spirit. There has been a significant increase in all-school events this year, and those have been enjoyable for most upper school students. Gaitonde said, “Although they may not be directly working on fixing the catering or library issues, they are doing a lot of other things this year to bolster our school spirit.”
As these changes to our school could greatly improve the environment and bring an overall positive presence, the student body must remember to commend the student government for the hard work they have put into making this school year enjoyable. Once these issues are brought to light, the school environment will continue to thrive for a lasting amount of time.