A student’s perspective is a very significant thing to listen to, especially in high school since it allows you (as teachers and administrators) to understand what goes through the students’ minds and the emotions they feel. It is important to listen to and understand each individual student’s issues to be better not just as a school but as a community.

Students aren’t willing to speak up due to the fact that mostly no one (teachers, administrators, and parents) takes into account what students have to say but it is a necessity to just listen and take it in.

Louckens Philippe is an 11th grader here at Santaluces Community High School, and I have interviewed him to understand his perspective on his current experience here at Santaluces. He is ranked number eight out of all the 11th grade and goes above and beyond when it comes to his academic status in school, maintaining a cumulative GPA of 4.8.

I began to start the interview with a very simple question: “What are your study habits?” Since he does hold himself on a higher academic level than the average student, I was curious about how he is able to sustain such outstanding grades.

He stated that his study tactics are re-reading chapters and taking notes whenever he feels something is important and that it is a necessity to put in the hours and take your time when it comes to studying. He studies for approximately three hours every Tuesday and Thursday, so that’s a good six hours of his free time already, and all the homework on top of that from his college core classes.

He stated classes such as APUSH are mandatory to study for; however, he says there are many teachers that are willing to help you here at Santaluces, such as Mrs. Mangone; on the other hand, he states that other teachers (which I won’t name) aren’t as patient with you and that if you break your leg you will still be expected to get that work done.

The next topic I asked about was the numerous activities provided here at Santaluces. Louckens believes that joining extracurricular activities are quite useless because of the fact that the school and teachers expect him to academically achieve and put aside so many hours to study while also staying after school in his free time to do things such as sports or clubs; however, that just isn’t a realistic standard when it comes to maintaining good grades for him.

Although he did say that if it’s during school time, he definitely will help out if the opportunity is presented.

I moved on to asking Louckens about his experience and feelings towards Santaluces. He stated that he actually really enjoyed 9th and 10th-grade years, but he isn’t quite feeling it this year. He stated that he doesn’t think it’s the school as a whole but the new coming students. He said the Freshmen here have no self-discipline and that’s not the school’s fault, it’s the parents.

He asked, “How many kids do you know get into a fight with on a daily basis? None. It is the selective handful of children who like to start issues that leave the school’s reputation to deteriorate.”

He stated that if you took AP Human Geography, you know about geographical racism or geographic class and so essentially you have these low-income kids at this school that are going to have some behavioral issues because typically they do; however, that doesn’t mean that these children should be allowed to roam around here wild and free without consequences.

He stated the things that make Santaluces a great school are the teachers and I’m sure many students would agree as well.