Students take lead in planning senior trip

By Nylah Smith

Feature/Entertainment Reporter

Although there will not be a senior class trip this year, the senior class did their best to organize plans for the senior trip, with students stepping in to help organize and communicate with school staff.

Senior Kimora Darby, who was instrumental in trying to plan the trip, writes down some ideas for it. Photo by Jasmine Grant.

Planning for the trip had been underway for the past few weeks as students worked toward a final decision together. A lot of students said they felt like they had to take the lead once they saw other schools already starting to plan their trips, and no school staff was advocating for them to have a trip.

“I’m not in a major role, but I’ve been helping communicate our ideas and suggestions for the senior trip to the people in charge,” said student representative Avona Rodgers. “Students stepped up to take the lead because nothing was being communicated about us, and we saw other schools already planning their senior trips.”

Since then, students have continued collecting ideas and trying to organize meetings with the staff to move the process forward. To get everyone’s opinions about the trip, the students used group chats and polls to decide on their trip. Using polls and group chats has helped student representatives get a better idea of what most of the senior class wants, since there are so many different ideas.

“Most students seem to wanna go to Six Flags. I got that from a poll on the senior page and what people were saying in the senior group chat with most of the class in it,” senior class president Makyla Johnson said.

Even with some challenges, students had narrowed down to an idea for the senior trip, which was a grad night at Six Flags with the other schools. Students said Six Flags was a popular choice because it is more affordable and easier compared to other trip ideas. This was the leading option had a school trip been approved.

“We are trying to get the students together and go to the administrators. So we can all plan the trip together.” Kimora Darby said.

It was hard to get there because one of the main issues, according to those involved, was staying organized since everyone had so many different ideas and i was hard to keep things fair and everyone happy with the trip decision.

“My biggest challenge in making decisions has been trying to make everyone happy, which I’ve realized isn’t really possible since everyone has different opinions. No matter what, not everyone is going to agree, and that’s okay. I’ve had to learn that during my time as president,” Johnson said.

Another hard part when planning the trip was talking to higher-ups so that it could actually be set in place. This trip is student-run, so the school staff wasn’t very involved in planning. Some students feel like the staff did not care about the senior class and was just trying to get rid of them since it’s the end of the year.

School staff also mentioned that students are supposed to be involved in the process and plan their senior trip. Principal Holified explained that the senior representatives were supposed to gather ideas from the class and work with the administration. He added that he would put out a survey at the beginning of the year to collect more student ideas early on.

“I like the idea of the process being student-run; I will be making a request that a survey be put out to the entire senior class at the outset of the year to ensure that all ideas are incorporated and sought. It behooves them to hold those representatives accountable for representing their ideas. Students must stay connected with their representatives and ask questions early and often,” Principal Mr. Holifield said.

As planning continued, students said they had hoped the final decision matched what most of the senior class wanted. A lot of students also said the senior trip matters so much to the class because it’s one of the last big things before graduation, and it would have been a great way to end their high school years. Also, students said they haven’t really done anything for the last four years, so this trip would really have made their high school years better. Even with disagreements and challenges during planning, students who were involved said they were focused on making sure the trip happened and that everyone could enjoy it.

“The trip is important because it’s like one of the last things we do as high school seniors. So, it’s a big deal to me,” Darby said.

“I really hope the senior trip ends up being the highlight of the year, since we haven’t really had much during these four years of high school,” senior Avona Rodgers said.