By: Ethan Wang and Siddharth Vaze
High school is a big turning point for a lot of students here at Seven Hills where they make the decision to stay or to move to another school. There are many reasons for this decision to leave, a few being the community, connections with teachers, and the lack of strength of our athletic program.
To start, many students that are leaving to rival high schools feel the lack of community between the teachers and the students. When interviewing eighth grader Ahmed Mahmoud, he said, “They treat others differently than they treat us and, you know, I just think that’s a little disrespectful.” When asked about other schools, students said that they feel very welcome and have a strong sense of community. St. X graduate, Shane Marsan who is now a fourth grade teacher at Lotspeich really commemorated the sense of friendship from his experience at St. X. “St. X felt like one giant friend group. Like, you could eat lunch with anybody, everyone was friends with everybody else and you never felt like there were cool or not cool people or things like that. So it just felt like a really close community.”
Secondly, students felt that other schools had a stronger connection between the students and the teachers. Ahmed elaborated, “Their teachers are really respectful and they know how to work with you, and if you have an issue, they’re going to help you fix it.” Ahmed argues that the connection between students and teachers are weaker at Seven Hills compared to other schools. He felt that the teachers at other schools might be better prepared for students who have a hard time understanding some topics in the course.
Even though some students expressed displeasure with the environment and bonding within the community, Seven Hills has values and perks that are well done and desirable. For example, Janet Hill, the head of enrollment, said many good things about Seven Hills: “In Upper School, it’s not just about the academics. We teach students how to be leaders, and how to think like an entrepreneur or from a business mindset.” She also said that the students appreciated the school because of “how much the parents cared for their kids” and “the academic strength.” Even though she thinks this school is on the right track and is doing good things, Janet Hill also wants the school to “promote athletics out in a wider community.” She mentioned that people want an athletically open environment and a better community.
Seven Hills is a school with lots of reasons to stay and leave. Ahmed felt the lack of bonds between the students and teachers and respect here, while he praised the community in different schools. On the other hand, Janet Hill gave some reasons to stay which are that Seven Hills has good academics, and how they teach students to be leaders.