Change is inevitable, but should always be done thoughtfully. Mira Costa administrators need to consider student opinion more seriously when implementing change.
Costa has recently undergone several significant changes. Our school has changed its Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) schedule annually for three years, altered its tardy policy and added a weekly homeroom period, all without consulting students.
According to a recent La Vista poll, only 14 percent of 84 students polled feel they were sufficiently consulted on the addition of homeroom. Only eight percent feel the same about changes in STAR scheduling, and only 10 percent for the last year’s tardy policy changes.
Costa is now considering a new block schedule for the California High School Exit Exam, and there is undoubtedly a significant percent of the Costa student population with strong opinions on this matter. If the administration springs these changes upon us, how can they know what effect it will have?
We understand that the ultimate goal of many of these changes is to better educate students, and oftentimes that is achieved; API scores have risen consistently in recent years.
Although administrators deserve credit for re-examining these aspects of our school, they should not be praised for making changes without consulting the student body.
The administration has changed one broken system at Costa without stepping on too many toes: the cheating policy. This system, although DMV-eqsue, was formed with input from students; according to social studies teacher Glenn Marx, much of the policy was formed from ideas presented last year by students in his class.
Allowing students in on this policy decision helps them respect it. To students, this means that all those old people who spend the whole day sitting in the nicest, most-air-conditioned building on campus actually put a lot of thought into making a fair policy for their school.
The administration should use the Associated Student Body to ensure that these types of successes occur in the future. Currently, the ASB vice president holds the responsibility of acting as Mira Costa’s school board representative, and it is through this role that student opinion can be properly considered.
Student representatives on the school board should be required to poll the student body on every relevant decision that the board makes. They should then relay their results to the board.
If administrators want their ideas to help students, they need to involve them. Implementing drastic changes without consulting us at all confuses us, and we’re already confused enough. After all, we’re teenagers.
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