What are the Problems?

Now that I am officially the Advisor to the Broadside, I have to be more restrained, reasonable and a roll-model for the young – and probably the middle – aged too. So no more frenetic, febrile rants – for now – unless you students do something really outrageous – like throwing a frisbee on the roof and not having the gear to get it down…..jeez.

And there is something more important anyway. We have a number of groups here that have some interest and responsibility to make Hanover High School better – so that we are better than just third in US News ranking of New Hampshire High Schools. We can easily be better that Profile High School – right? But what’s holding us back? The Council, The Broadside, The Committee on Instruction and The Administration are all supposed to be improving our life here.  But what are the problems here and what should be done?

Well the Broadside came up with a brilliant way to find out – ASK THE STUDENTS. What a stroke of genius. So the Advisor cooked up a penetrating, statistically valid questionnaire and browbeat 54 students in the Atrium to complete it. And don’t even think about standard deviations and all that stuff.

Anyway here are the significant results:

The Biggest Problems here at HHS:

Too much homework – 22

Cafeteria –  low quality & high price – 7

Too much academic pressure – 6

Too much work; No dances; Stress; Too much competition – 5 each

Overall Ranking of life here at HHS:

Great! – 18 – 33%

Pretty Good – 27 – 50%

Just OK – 6 – 11%

Sucks – 3 – 5%

What to do to improve life here at HHS:

Less /Better Homework – 21

Less Tests – 7

Nothing – 7

More/Enforcing X’s – 7

So now we know what to do. The Broadside will be following up these areas of concern with you and all the groups above to see if anything can be changed – for the better of course.

And I would encourage you to get busy and let your concerns be known. After all it is you who are going to do the suffering and pain of changes like less homework and more dances.