With a new principal, policies get changed. During the school year Taft has many exciting events (Football games, Prom, Homecoming) in which students need to meet certain eligibility requirements to attend: 80% or higher on-time-to-class-rate, passing six out of seven classes and no group four, five, or six misconducts. No repeated three misconducts and no two – two misconducts (leaving the school without permission).
In previous years, Taft has had periods of time where students needed to consistently meet these expectations and if there were expectations not met outside of our eligibility periods it would not affect you or it would reset after a semester ends.
In the recent SOAR assembly meetings, it was revealed that misconducts made at any point throughout the year can affect your eligibility for events. If you are a senior there is more at risk because of senior exclusive events.
Maeve Deane, a senior who attended the SOAR assembly said, “I think this provides more encouragement for everyone to be at school as a lot of people look forward to events like homecoming and prom.”
This student expressed her belief that this new policy being implemented can help to encourage the students to follow the rules. However, Adrienne Carmona, an English Teacher, had a different view on how she feels about this policy change.
Carmona said, “I’m for it, I understand in a student’s perspective they all want open campus, they want better food, I understand that. But again as a teacher I am responsible for what goes on in my classroom and I’m a part of this community. We want to talk about community building and making sure everyone is safe.”
The purpose of this policy change is simply to keep our school and student body safe with the hopes of getting people to follow our SOAR expectations. There are many mixed feelings within the student body, but many still feel it can be effective in keeping our school safe and from having people repeatedly leave and come back during the bay.
