High School Uniform

It was mid-morning when I pulled up to school, still wondering if I made the right decision by enrolling. Instead of feeling calm, cool, and collected the only thing arriving early did was increase the feeling of impending doom. My mind was racing a mile a minute. Am I going to be able keep up to the bright minds fresh out of high school? It was time to find out.

To many freshman the first day of high school is the opening chapter of a new novel, a fresh start to a sometimes embarrassing middle school experience we would all just love to erase from our memories. August 13th, 2012 was the beginning of my four year long narrative at Cypress Bay High School. Despite my desperate desire to grow up, become an adult, and move far away from my parents for college all that did not seem possible because I had never previously attended a public school. I was struck with fear that I would not be able to adjust to the fast pace dynamics of a large high school.

August 15, 2013 was the date that I entered high school. I had high hopes for the upcoming high school years to be my best years ever since I was in sixth grade. I expected that I can make more friends, join more club activities, and can choose classes that I really like. Although I was very enthusiastic and eager to start the all new school years, I also had a lot of worries and confusion about it also. The night before I start my freshmen year, the thoughts of failing classes, and be able to graduate high school kept

I think I speak for many people when I say high school is a critical point in one’s life. Coming into high school, things seemed to be tightly-knitted between my peers and I; those of us who had just

On February 24 of 1996 when President Bill Clinton made a speech at the Jackie Robinson Academy in Long Beach California he stated “This remarkable progress that you have shown in your school as a result of your school uniform policy, making it safe, more disciplined and orderly, creates teachers who focus on teaching and students who focus on their job of learning” (Bily, 2014 p.5). The school dress code debate is not new and the belief that it makes schools safer and improves learning and test scores has been in the forefront as one of the many ways to improve and promote education in our country. The school classrooms in this country are nothing like they were in the past.

My whole life I have been invested in doing what I love, focusing on my true passions, as well as finding new ones. I have been very involved in my high school, and have been lucky enough to be a part of multiple clubs and activities. Without these activities, my high school experience and life would be a lot different. I have been an active drama club member, a part of ‘Bottlecappers,’ a club advocating anti-drug, alcohol, and bullying to younger students in my district, and many other community service opportunities. I am lucky to have the opportunity to be in these activities, as they have shaped me to be the young adult I am today.

Finally, I am finished with middle school. Anxiously thinking about the first day of high school, I knew that it would be hectic and wild, but I was ecstatic. Of course, the night before I could not sleep. I lay awake dreaming about how my first day at John Paul II will go. How will it be meeting new people and seeing old friends from last year? Will high school be hard? Will I get lost? I kept thinking about the unknown and worst possible outcomes. My first day of high school was unexpected.

The fifth grade school year ended very quickly, Mrs.Cullen retired, and my classmates and I moved on to the next chapter of our lifes, sixth grade. As the next school year arrived, I went about sixth grade the same way I had started about fifth grade, I had a ton of friends in my class, and I thought that sixth grade would be a walk in the park. My advisor was Mr.Ferry, and having to write about 1000 times I will not disrupt class, I finally began to approach sixth grade in a different way. In sixth grade I learned the importance of mindfulness, and doing what I loved from

Who knew High School would be over in a blink of an eye? Four short years and a whole chapter of your life is over. The goal everyone was striving to achieve was completed, yet an even bigger thing was approaching “Life”. All 365 of us would venture out into the world and start new journeys hundreds of miles apart.

As any other freshman entering high school it can be a very nerve racking situation. On September 8, 2015 I Chelsea Gonzalez was entering high school in Thurgood Academy Of Learning And Social Change , my mind was going crazy and I didn't know what to expect. I have always asked myself whether high school would be similar to what appeared in movies; people dancing and singing on top of the lunch tables or, was it going to be a 4 horrible school years in which I would never make friends. I clearly remember seeing kids running toward their group of friends, as I walked down the lunchroom. My hands were sweating and it felt like a million butterflies in my stomach. The room was filled with cries of laughter, kids running back and forth asking each

Walking into school on my first day of high school, I felt out of place. My face covered in acne, my teeth covered in braces, and the callicks in my hair stuck up through the abnormally thick layer of hair gel that coated them. My middle school social anxiety still ruled over me as I could barely speak with any member of the opposite sex. Yet, I still had an odd confidence about me. I had always been one of the best students in my class, even without ever studying for a test. I viewed high school as a slight uptick from the curriculum I had easily passed in middle school. I was wrong. High school exists as a microcosm of society, in which I originally failed to acclimate myself to the challenges posed to me in a setting of increased

On August 24th, I began a new chapter of my life. This was the first day of classes for the fall semester, which meant that I was officially a college student. For almost all of my classes, I had a fellow baseball player or two which helped out because I would have someone to converse with. After the first week of classes, I thought that my classes would be a breeze, but eventually that would come to change. The assignments began to become

1. Daugherty explains often schools uniforms are less expensive than the clothing that students typically wear to school. Nonetheless, the cost of purchasing a uniform may be a burden on some families. Districts planning to institute a uniform policy should address this issue prior to implementation. Grants of assistance have been available from federal or state agencies and from private sources, and graduates typically donate their uniforms to the school.

The first year, the time to prove myself had arrived. Classes, rooms, teachers, and some students were unfamiliar. Eventually, minutes melted into hours, hours to days, and days to weeks. It didn’t take long before my schedule was routine, something of second nature. Humor and happiness were found in the form of my advisory family, where school was transformed into something more than going through the same motions of day to day activity. By the closing point of sixth grade, I was having a hard time letting go of what I’d adapted to. “What’s wrong?” my dad asked when I was getting into the car after being picked up early on the last day. I explained how distressed I was that my first year of middle school exceeded my expectations, and that it had to come to an end. Although his outlook viewed my reason for sorrow as trivial, I didn’t.

It was 2016, and I was finally a senior in high school. Being a senior in high school was something that I had dreamed of since my early middle school days, and at last, I was there. It was the last year in one of my least favorite environments, and I couldn’t wait to graduate and move away from the only place I had ever known. I had lived in the same town for seventeen years, and I had gone to the same school with the same people for thirteen years. I was looking forward to something new in my life. I was most excited for my senior year because it was the year that I was going to choose where I wanted to move away to and what school I wanted to spend the next four years of my life at. As the year moved along, I slowly realized that I wasn’t moving away and that I’d be staying home to attend college, which was one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make.