New School in the Neighborhood

Can I Sleep In A Little More?

Ashtyn Patterson

Ashtyn Patterson

Can you imagine a school with fewer students, crowds, and fights? Well because of the new school that has been built, some of our very own Mandarin Mustangs will be leaving us; or at least 500 of our mustangs.

 The new high school, or Atlantic Coast High School, can hold up to 2200 students and has an expansion capability of up to 2600. For its first year, the school will only have 9^th through 11^th graders, which lets rising seniors finish up their classes at Mandarin instead of having to transfer to a new school. Seniors will be allowed to enroll at Atlantic Coast High in the 2011-2012 school year.

 But because Mandarin will have fewer students, there will be fewer crowds and fights, which is a good thing. Who wants to continually get to classes late because of large crowds and occasionally? Not me for certain. In addition, the traffic around the school in the mornings and afternoons will be less congested.

So, for those students who want to see what Atlantic Coast High School looks like, you can either search online or go to the actual school. The school is located on Baymeadows Road, east of 9A.

It is a proven fact that most high schools start at around 7:15 to 7:30 every morning. This means that most teens have to wake up around 5:00 or later to get ready for the day. By the time these teens get to school, however, they are too tired to pay attention in class and often do fall asleep instead of doing their work.

With this lack of sleep, teens can develop some bad health risks such as heart disease, obesity, depression, and even diabetes. Would you really like to have any of these health risks when you could just simply sleep in a little longer in the morning?

Studies have shown though that teens who have a high school that starts later than 7 a.m. have a higher attention span and higher G.P.A.s. So, should our school be one of the ones that start later? Maybe with school starting later, our students here at Mandarin could pay more attention in their classes and do better on tests and exams.

How Relationships Affects Students and Academics

How In The World Did I End Up In This Class?

Suilen Nunez

Ashtyn Patterson

We all go through those moments in High School when we have our little sweethearts, and cuties that can distract us from various things, specially academics and school work. For many students this is a conflict, having to handle a relationship with their boyfriend/girlfriend and at the same time , accomplish their academic responsibilities. As one of the students said, Aubrey Virginia , “ this happens to some people , and those to think a lot about what is going on in their relationship, even the smallest detail “ .  Once someone starts dating, the gossip and rumors start to go around like crazy, and it all spreads. The two dating worry about what he/she does around people, what they talk about, what their partner does behind their back, they talk to their friends about how the relationship is going, and none of this includes focusing in class, not even helping each other in homework or projects. Is all about the relationship and the gossip. “ When I get a boyfriend all I do is worry about what my partner is doing, and that highly affects my grades, because instead doing my homework , I stay all night on the phone and leave the homework for some other time “, as Courtney O’Toole said, a sophomore student. “All relationships do to me is affect me negatively”, she again repeated .  Additionally, not all students think the same way, some couples are lucky enough to get along very well and work things out in a way that rumors never go further than themselves, and helping each other academically is one of their activities that they do together. But unfortunately most of my interviews resulted saying that relationship causes tons of problems, and huge academic distraction.

When you think about Mandarin High, usually one of the first things that you think about is how it is an ‘A’ school.  There is no doubt that Mandarin High is one of the best high schools in the area. But despite knowing that, there are many students who are not helping Mandarin stand up to its good reputation.

There are many students in our school that have stated that they were “put into an AP class against their will”. Sure, maybe some students were placed into an AP class, but that doesn’t give them a reason to not do work in their classes. Just because a student was “placed” into a class they didn’t want doesn’t mean they can’t work their hardest and be at the level of the other students who weren’t “placed unwillingly” in those classes.

 In order to keep Mandarin High an ‘A’ school, we must all work our hardest and push our limits. Even though some students are in the classes they don’t like, they should still work their hardest and help to improve our school. And who knows, maybe all that hard work will pay off later on?