Students with an unweighted 3.8 GPA or higher were honored at the annual academic breakfast on Jan. 24. These 221 students from all grade levels were invited to spend the latter half of first block at the celebration in the cafeteria, where students received food, various prizes and raffle tickets to win items from local businesses, including the Blue Oaks Century Theater, Paul Martin’s American Bistro, and Fitness 19, as well as items from the school, including T-shirts and free tickets to the Sadies dance.

Upon entering the cafeteria, students received free bags containing a water bottle, a certificate that allowed students to redeem a free ticket to a Kings home game and passes for each department that allow students an exemption from one homework assignment or test. Complimentary muffins, fruit and juice were also available for students.

In order to plan this event, leadership students, led by recognition commissioner
Meagan Haight, began working one month before the event, starting out by sending letters to local businesses to ask for donations to raffle off at the event.

“Going to different businesses and getting donations from companies was definitely the most difficult part of planning this event,” Haight said.

Other than requesting donations from businesses, recognition committee members also had to contact Mrs. Leslie Simpson to receive a list of students who met the GPA requirements, write invitations to each student, spend around $1000 to buy the bags and water bottles that students received and stuff each bag with items. Committee members also purchased all of the food and drinks for the event, which cost around $50.

“It was my first year at the academic breakfast, and I really liked the raffle, the free bags with the homework passes and water bottles in them and of course, the muffins too,” freshman Karishma Patel said. “I didn’t have anything like this at my middle school, so the whole experience was totally new.”

However, for seniors who have been to the breakfast for the past four years, this year’s breakfast was not as exciting as those in past years.

“Though this breakfast was definitely a good time, the energy was really low and the prizes weren’t nearly as good as they have been in previous years,” senior Alaina Boyle said.

Problems with the distribution of the raffle tickets made giving out prizes more difficult, as some of the raffle tickets that were drawn had not been handed out to students at the breakfast.

“We had some problems with the raffle tickets, since many of them were sitting in unused bags, so when we called out those numbers, the corresponding tickets were in unopened bags, not with students, so we had to keep drawing multiple numbers for many of the prizes,” activities director Ms. Jennifer Yadon said.

Despite this small challenge, organizers felt the event was still fairly successful.

“The breakfast went pretty smoothly. We only had to set up for half an hour and clean up for about the same amount of time. It’s a pretty low-funded event, but it still went well. I will be meeting with the recognition committee on Monday to talk about changes to the event, and I think one of our goals for next year will be to get students more excited for the breakfast,” Yadon said.

Though some students enjoy the event, others would like to see changes in how the event is structured, particularly in the criteria used to select students to attend the breakfast.

“Though it’s nice to be recognized, I don’t like that non-weighted GPAs are used to select students, since these classes just aren’t as difficult as AP classes. This makes an invitation to the breakfast far less special, since people who have taken easier classes get to participate too,” junior Scott Fryslie, who has attended the breakfast for three years, said.

Due to funding and the lack of availability of weighted classes for freshmen, this change is unlikely to be implemented.

“Many students want weighted GPAs to be used, but that would cut the freshmen out since they don’t have many opportunities to take weighted classes. This would also increase the number of students who would qualify to attend the breakfast, making the event more expensive to plan and execute,” Yadon said.

However, students still appreciate the purpose of the event, and some seniors feel nostalgic as they realize they won’t attend one again.

“It’s nice to be recognized for our achievements at the breakfasts,” Boyle said, “but it’s a little bittersweet since I know it’s one of so many lasts this senior year.”

by KAVYA PATHAK