There are many things students might want to know about their school. Maybe you want to know more about the school’s history, or maybe even the contrary; the future of CHAH. Well, that’s exactly what this interview with principal Falciani will be about; so what exactly do students want to know about their school?
I went around asking my friends what they would like to know about CHAH, and I gathered 8 amazing open-ended questions. Everyone has something they’re curious about, and what better way is there to find out information than to ask the school principal? So I’ll be using my friend’s questions to interview principal Falciani, and get some answers from him!
A question I asked Falciani was, “Why don’t we have more middle school sports?” to which he answered, “Actually, we have more middle school sports than most schools, we’re part of the [P]SAL, which we have a middle school official baseball league, we have now the flag football league. Most middle schools I know aren’t part of [P]SAL. We also do volleyball, soccer, and I think we used to do track. But we have more sports than a lot of middle schools.”
But maybe people want more than just those sports? Perhaps students want hockey, tennis, fencing, etc. What do you think? Do you think we need more sports at CHAH?
I also asked Mr. Falciani, “Why do we have to pay on dress down days?” and he responded, “It’s a fundraiser for the school. It’s something that the student government organizes in order to collect funds so that we can fund some projects like the school dances, trips, and things of that nature. So it really acts as a fundraiser. Students who want to dress down and can’t afford it can always speak to me and we’re usually pretty generous when it comes to allowing students who can’t afford it to take part in it anyways.”
That’s very generous of the school. And whenever you’re bummed you have to pay to dress differently, remember what it’s for.
I also asked him what makes a good student, and he told me, “A good student usually starts with a good community member,” so a student who is respectful of teachers and students, comes prepared, and contributes to a positive school environment. He also told me it was also about academics, and working hard no matter what. And this is all very true. Most kids at this school do fit those attributes.
I asked him why we don’t go on more trips, and he told me that he does speak to teachers about trips, and he does want to do more trips. They’re working on it as a school and trying to encourage each grade team to plan trips, since there’s so much to explore in NYC. But where do students want to go? That’s the question.
Next, I asked him his thoughts on the cleanliness of the school environment. He did believe the school was exceptionally clean with a good custodial crew. However, he thinks students throwing trash on the floor and being inconsiderate and littering is really a problem. This is true, and we as a school have to learn to clean up after ourselves.
But all in all, this was a very informative interview. I learned a lot about the school, and I hope you did too. And maybe you could reflect Falciani’s viewpoint of a good student onto yourself. And please, can we make the janitor’s jobs easier and stop littering?!