Starting off the 2023-24 school year at Taft High School, Principal Mark Grishaber decided to make another deal with students. This deal entails the stop of drug use in school, the stop of skipping class, and use of the phone tree. But what does success look like for Taft students? How do they plan to keep up with this deal?
When asked about the most important parts of his presentation to students, Grishaber said, “I think the most important part was to talk about the non-negotiables. Things I think everybody needs to know but not everybody does know.” He specifically pointed out that last year was the last year to use covid as an excuse.
But why has there been no talk around the school about this deal? When looking at Taft social media, there is no postage about the spring dance under certain circumstances. After taking a look at about 150 social media app stories each day, there has been no sign of students taking this deal seriously.
The hottest question geared towards Grishaber is why he chose a spring dance over the very requested off campus lunch, he commented that when he had off campus lunch in high school there were, “12 restaurants within four minutes of the school,” whereas here at Taft his concern is the lack of time to get there and back.
As for what the students think, Bella Woods, Taft senior, said, “As appealing as a spring dance is, I personally would have responded better to off campus lunch. We don’t need a dance, we need to be able to go outside, eat some food and take a break.”
Bernadette Martensen, Taft senior, agreed with the previous student’s statement, quoting “Yeah, I wonder if more students would be talking about this deal if off campus lunch was the option.”
As winter months approach, attendance rate at Taft is known to drop significantly compared to the fall. Especially since a dance doesn’t seem to get the Taft students excited about attending school, how do administrators plan to proceed? The dance has seemed to be more important to the senior class because it is their last time attending Taft High School.
Another inquiry students had for Grishaber is how he will measure their success, he responded to this by saying he knows, “There will be three or four out of a group of ten still not following the rules.” He understands that there are many more who do follow the rules.
