I find a seat at a table of four nearest to the door as the warning bell whistles its familiar, disapproving call to chatty students lingering outside, and they start to file into the Buffalo High school Library. People wander around in a couple of tight-knit circles, and most of them are quick to choose tables. For the few last stragglers, the seats furthest away from the door are the only option. They make their way back slowly and reluctantly.

As the final bell rings, everyone is seated in their groups; an endless stream of banter and nattering flows in each little section. Media Specialist Amy Sparks turns on a cartoon that seems to involve sheep…and maybe a plot? I wouldn’t know because it was hard to hear what the sheep were saying over the drone of voices in the library.

Not only is the talking ceaseless, it also seems that everyone is able to multitask and be on their phones at the same time. There’s a whole library of books at their disposal, should they care to check them out, but I don’t notice a single soul reading a book, unless it happens to be on their phone.

The lights are dimmed near the back corner of the library by the rows of bookshelves to provide shade to see the neglected cartoon. It’s enough to make me squint at my notebook. There are three couples in that corner, two of which are practically sitting in each others laps, kissing.

Suddenly the lights burst into fluorescent white near them, and I spot two library aids striding quickly towards them. The younger of the two, in jean blue and polka dots, tells them, “You gotta cut it out with the cuddling guys.” The lights are left on. The third couple hiding behind a corner defy the librarian’s request.

As the end of the day draws to a close, the gathering together of friend groups is broken up by the packing up of bags. The librarians are in their back room, not anticipating a book check out from anyone.

Kids lumber about and squeeze out the clangy metal doors across the area where faulty security sensors used to stand. The cartoon mutters on as another school session is ended in the High School Library with last minute side conversations and snickers.

What this means is that a couple classes will be let out of each pod to go clean their lockers, and soon after, another couple of classes will follow them. That way by the end of the day, all the lockers are empty and clean, leaving our hard-working janitors less work and more time to do final clean up. After all, the teachers and the maintenance staff want to get out of school just as much as the students.

There are typically four or five shifts of classes getting released.  The first group of classes get out at around 3:00. Five minutes later the second group gets dismissed. No one will actually get let out with the bell at 3:25 and there is no AAA.

Nick Miller (the principal before Mr. Mischke) was the one who came up with this genius idea over 20 years ago. It initially made it easier if there was just less people in the hallways who were all trying to escape the school. There are approximately 1,850 students, after all! The seniors are ushered out as soon as possible for a couple of last pictures so we don’t have to add nostalgic/crying graduates to the chaos of the last day.

Since the last week of school is usually very stressful for staff, having a good working system for exiting the school helps take some of the stress off of our administration’s shoulders.  Another added bonus to the staggered release is that it reduces the chance that students will want to conduct an end of the year prank that could result in an anxious janitorial staff.

In previous years, the couple attempts at pranks ended fairly badly, with some students arrested for such things as animal cruelty and destruction of property as a result of their poor judgement.

Hopefully this year’s last day can transition smoothly into Summer break, just as Mr. Miller intended it to be.

Many students and teachers gave generous donations towards the cause even if they didn’t buy a donut. In fact, SSU’s goal of selling out came true before 8:30 when many students arrive. Ashley Cordt said that “A lot of people still had their money so they just dropped it into a bucket even though we didn’t have any donuts, which was really cool!”

Mr. Rabehl also showed support by passing a hat around the band room, encouraging students to donate money for Officer Brusch. By the end of the day, the total amount of money raised was counted to $1,301.50!

Officer Brusch was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer at the end of January, and has since set up a GoFundMe page where you can read his story and donate money.

When Officer Brusch isn’t pulling people over outside the school, “He’s inside mentoring students, or talking to students that have a harder time at school. He normally sits down and chats with them about it and tries to put them on the right track.” When SSU decided to bring awareness to his situation, they thought that selling donuts might be a good way to raise money because of the correlation between police officers and donuts and it would be enjoyable for those choosing to donate.

Normally, SSU focuses on groups of people to raise money for, but it was refreshing and heart-warming to see all the students and teachers donating to help out a valued member of the Buffalo school community.

Mrs. Schultz says, “If a student calls their parent and says, ‘Hey I need to go home’, when the parent shows up or if they need a pass to go home they need to come to the health office so we can identify that they don’t feel good and/or are sick.” The health office is required to report to the MN Department of Health once the percentage of kids with, say Influenza, reaches 5%, which is an average of eighty students in our school population.  

We haven’t reached the magic number of 5% this flu season, but there are typically 5-8 students out of 100 that have gone through the health office per day with influenza-like symptoms (fever of 100.5+, Sore throat, cough, and body aches) over the last couple of weeks.  If the student has an influenza-like illness they are sent home to rest up and give their body time to recover.

While you’re sitting at home waiting the required 24 hours for your fever to go down, it’s important that you take lots of fluids, and maybe vitamin C. Mrs. Schultz warns that, “Vitamin C is what we call water soluble, so you can’t overdose; It will excrete what it doesn’t use.”

On average, the Mrs. Schultz estimates that students with influenza stay home for an average of three days. With the High School’s block schedule, this can be tricky for managing absent work. How can we prevent ourselves catching this bug?

It seems the cause of this outbreak is mostly due to being very active and busy with sports and schoolwork. Our bodies are also more prone to illness when we’re sleep deprived. We are constantly putting stress on our bodies this way. The more we decrease our tendency to stay up late or wear our body down, and the more we wash our hands and put space between us and our peers (so they don’t cough in our faces), the more likely we are to prevent ourselves from catching influenza or any other illness for that matter.

These tips won’t “cure” the influenza virus if we contract it, but as Mrs. Schultz assures, “It helps your symptoms get better if you’re resting up, taking fluids and getting some good healthy food.”

    Before the contest began, they were given the opportunity to listen to live performances of a couple of pieces from their study booklet, including Swedish fiddling and a vocal performance of a song composed by Brahms.

Maybe these distractions weren’t enough; not only did they have to memorize 42 composers and a piece composed by each, but they also tried to memorize the dates that each song was written, different themes and vocabulary that pertained to each song, and—last but not least—the spelling of each classical composer and their piece.

It was difficult to meet with Mr. Walsh because of busy schedules, so a lot of the studying was done on their own, splitting up the extensive study guide and using their free year’s-worth subscription to Naxos. It wasn’t as much time as they would have liked to have had, but they pulled through by cramming on the bus down to Augsburg College and focusing on the little details on their own.

When finally seated at the competition, they received exactly the same scores they’d received at regionals in the first three rounds. The fourth round wasn’t as successful, but the fifth round “killed their chances” according to Rachel. One problem was that “You think it sounds like one thing, but it doesn’t actually sound like that.”

There was a lot more pressure to do right from the win they had earned at the regional contest. It was stressful trying to remember the little details when each thirty-second excerpt was being played. All 21 teams were given time to reflect on their progress between rounds when a microphone was passed around and the teams were asked questions about their school, their musical interests, and who their favorite composer was.

How in the world does a person decide to compete in a contest of listening to classical music? Rachel Huss explained that she discovered this contest when her sophomore friend would be “riding the bus and listening to music and reading this book, and I asked her what it was. She said it was the High School Music Listening Contest…I got interested in that and decided to join when Mr. Walsh brought up the information on it.”

All three had a musical background; Declan and Emma being recruited by Rachel from their shared orchestra class. Music has been important to Rachel Huss; she is involved in many musical activities and says that “I’m a really competitive person and I don’t have a winter sport, so if I have this after school then I have something music-related to fill my schedule, and I like that.”

The Music Listening Contest might be just the activity for a person who wouldn’t mind learning more about classical music and who wants to understand how this genre of music has shaped our world.