Our New Middle School: As Good as Promised?

Students as old as eighteen - legal adults - will be sharing a larger campus with children as young as eleven next year. The new middle school will also have a plethora of new, upgraded equipment while the upper school (although students spend more time in the latter) will continue to have the old facilities.

But isn't there a good reason why there they are building a new campus? Why else would this project exist? This project involves building a new middle school beside the upper school, combining the two schools into a larger campus.

Indeed, there is a beneficial side to the new middle school. As previously mentioned, there will be better facilities available. Due to the combined libraries, more books will be easily accessible to both campuses. Despite the adverse effects of having unruly near-adults with innocent children, there is always the benefit of experience; Twelfth graders may assist with studies, help learning, even sub or act as tutors. 

We know what we think about this, but our question is what you think. 

In the past few weeks, we interviewed several students across the middle school and the upper school and asked them what they thought about the two campuses merging. We also set up a survey, which got nearly 100 responses to the same question. 

Overall the survey showed us that nearly half of the students who answered felt indifferent. On the other hand, about 1/3 of the people believed the merging was acceptable, and the rest thought it was bad. Since we didn't add follow-up questions, we didn't know the reason behind all these answers, so we dug deeper while doing the interviews.

What is your opinion on the merging of the schools?

We started by asking some students what was irritating about their current building and if the new school would solve these problems.

First, we asked Emmy Malm, a 7th-grader, who told us her opinion: "There are not that many bathrooms. There's a bathroom on each floor, and on the top floor, there's one, but it's tiny and one at the very bottom. That's the main one." 

We also asked Amélie Nettleton, a 9th-grader, the same question. She replied: "First of all, we only have like five minutes break to get to the next class, and then the school is a bit small for everyone to... get through and be in class five minutes later. So I guess a longer break or... bigger... hallways or something so people can get their way to class faster..." regarding issues about the upper school. Nettleton also said: "Well, I had to look at it recently, because yesterday we had a fire alarm practice and we saw that the building was bigger and it was way more spacious," suggesting that the new campus would have larger hallways and is going to be an upgrade.

Of course, we didn't only focus on all the problems with the old campuses but also asked some other things. For example, we asked Nikola Vonic, a 12th grader, how he thinks working and interacting with people as young as 11 will be. He answered: "I think it would be great for clubs. For example, we have an eSports club, and right now there's a shortage of members, but we believe that if there are more students such as middle schoolers who are interested in playing games could join that club."

“We have an eSports club, and right now there's a shortage of members, but we believe that if there are more students such as middle schoolers who are interested in playing games could join that club.”

-Nikola Vonic

On the other hand, 8th grader Lorelei Schlick isn't so excited about working with younger students. "Those 18-year-olds seem kind of scary, but the 11-year-olds might be a bit annoying," she said.

There are multiple opinions on the middle and upper school merging, but we have tried to give you a look into your fellow students' points of view. So now you know what they think, but what is your angle on the situation?

Special thanks to Emmy Malm for helping me with some of the interviews, Mrs. Taylor for getting in touch with students who were willing to be interviewed, and Antonia Laing for helping me produce the article.