By Ali Durkin and Jillina Risavi

Staff Writers

As the year comes to an end, Jamesville-DeWitt High School students are either happy or a bit disappointed with how the school year went. Events like homecoming, the semi-formal dance, and J-D Day all affected the students’ opinions of the school year.

Many students believe that overall it was a good school year. “It went by really fast,” says freshman Marcos Petkopoulos. Activities like sports, band, chorus, and other extra curricular activities were a lot of the reasons why many students enjoyed the year. Senior Bella Hylen’s favorite part was being part of stage crew. “It was fun to get to know a lot of new people and to get to work with them on the musicals,” says Hylen. “J-D offers so many extracurricular activities,” says junior Michael Schwedes, “it’s impossible not to find a club you wouldn’t be interested in.”

Although many students have enjoyed the year, there are a few things they think could have been improved. Many students, like senior Riley Foti, thought that there should be more air conditioning in more rooms in the school. Currently there is only air conditioning in the computer labs and the library, but people think it should be in the classrooms, too. “It’s hard in concentrate in class when it’s hot, mainly at the end of the year,” says Foti.  Another complaint was that there are too many rules and passes needed to get into the library. Hylen said that she would change “how hard it is to get into the library.”  Since you need a pre-signed pass, many students find it more difficult to get into the library to get their work done. Freshman Payton Riley agrees; “it shouldn’t be this hard just to get to the library and get work done.”

As for the dances this year, such as the homecoming dance and the semi formal dance, many people were disappointed with the outcome. “I didn’t like how homecoming was in the cafeteria,” says freshman Sydney Baum. Sophomore Alex Catanzarite was also disappointed and thought that they could improve the dances by “providing food.” Many students, such as juniors Ciara Norris and Melissa Murphy, thought that it was odd that the homecoming bonfire and dance was a day after the homecoming football game. “I felt like no one really wanted to go because we lost the football game,” says Norris. Many students didn’t even attend either events due to bad experiences in the past. “They were kind of boring,” says Baum.

In the past few years, the weather has dampened J-D day. This year, we were lucky enough to have a beautiful, sunny day to enjoy J-D day fun. This year it consisted of many new and different things. There was a photobooth, food stands, a dunk tank, a bounce house, and even a band, Dan and The Pussycatz. The Re-enactors Club also collected a big crowd when they performed a battle scene from the Civil War. Although most people were satisfied with the day’s events, some people still found it boring. Some people just didn’t attend J-D day because of their disappointment from the past years, however, this year’s excitement will possibly bring back more students for the following years.