The Class of 2027 is slowly learning to adjust to the new environment that is high school. After one month, the freshmen are finally starting to warm up to the layout of the new school.
“I like how many more people there are,” freshman Nia Bryant said. “There are a lot of new faces mixing with the old ones.”
Unlike Parkway Northeast Middle that had just over 750 students, Parkway North High School has over 1050 students. This also means that the school structure itself is bigger.
“With how big the school is, I get lost,” Bryant said. “Thankfully, the upstairs classrooms are just in a big circle.”
The benefit of having more students housed in one building is the ability to offer more classes to meet the diverse interests and needs of students including AP courses.
Freshman Carly Walker, who takes AP and honors classes, said, “Taking honors classes is way more workload then just normal.”
Even though the workload is difficult, having more students on campus means that there is also more support. Currently, 37% of Parkway North students take one or more AP courses.
“We knew signing up for AP and Honors classes would be tough, but we had friends who were upperclassmen who gave us advice,” Walker said. “A lot of people told me to keep on your work, don’t goof off because it’s going to build up quickly,”
This is good advice since high school comes with more responsibility, not just with school life, but with personal life as well.
“High school is so different with more kids walking around and more responsibility,” Lovejoy said. “Everyone minds their own business and is on their own time, but having so many kids walk around is overwhelming.”
Some of the biggest problems the freshmen brought up is that they were not prepared enough for the big change. Lovejoy, Bryant, and Walker all mentioned that middle school did not prepare them enough for how much homework, and how much of a workload they would be getting.
Freshman year is always a hard year for everyone. Getting used to new teachers, the new building, new classes, and new people has its difficulties but its rewards too.
