Classes like AP US History and CIS Literature require summer work so that they are able to cover all the necessary material in a condensed amount of time. Students taking these classes are given textbooks, worksheets, readings and other materials and assignments the week before school gets out to prepare them for their summer work.

“We had to do five chapters on our own time so that’s about 100 textbook pages of reading,” Said Sophmore Taylor McNitt, “Then we had to fill out about 30 notecards for each chapter and then fill out a worksheet. I procrastinated until the second to last week of summer. “

In these classes, the purpose of summer homework is to save you from stress during the school year. The class would be much too stressful if you had to pack any more work in. Although the summer work is necessary, that doesn’t mean all the students like it.

“[When] a lot of kids [find out about the summer homework they] are just like ‘Nope, I’m not taking this class.’” Said McNitt.

Some students are very against summer work while other don’t mind, and understand the importance of getting it done.

“I really don’t care, it’s summer homework and I’m supposed to do it to take the class. And it’ll give me something to do over the summer when I’m bored. So, I’m actually alright with it” says Freshman Kris Hamann.

While the initial idea of homework in the summer sounds unappealing, once finished with the class, students understand the utility of summer homework and the reward of finishing the class makes it worth it.

“I think it’s worth taking it because you’re learning college material and getting college credits, if you can pass the test, for free as long as you’re willing to put the time into it.” Said McNitt

“If you want to wear closed toed shoes, just wear actual shoes,” said Freshman Alex Hage, referring to Crocs at school.

The colorful plastic shoes known as Crocs were a popular fad in the late 2000’s, when most of current high schoolers were in elementary school. For a few years they seemed to go away and out of style.

Sophomore Megan Ratke said, “I wore them in like second grade and then I outgrew them… people just started wearing them last year.”

Now people are wearing them again and they’re making a comeback.

“If they did leave then I guess they would be coming back because there’s a lot of people wearing them now,” said Senior Millie Chisel.

It’s clear that Crocs are becoming more popular, partly due to the warmer weather. People choose to wear them for a variety of their own reasons. Some people like them because they are easy, both to wear and to match with.

“You don’t have to think about what you’re going to wear for your shoes with your outfit, it goes with everything,” Junior Shelby Hermansen. says.

While there is some disagreement on them being fashionable, overall the utility and comfort of Crocs is what makes them popular.

“[I like them] because they’re easy to put on, when I’m walking out the door,” says Ratke.

“They’re like heaven on your feet,”Hermansen added.

Some critics still disapprove of the footwear.

“They’re ugly. Just wear sandals,” Hage says.

Whether you like Crocs or not, they’re here and not going away.

At Westerns this year, Amanda earned scores between 8.5 and 9.5 out of 10 on every event, placing her at 11th out of 28 overall. She placed 5th place on Bars (9.375) and 2nd on Beam (9.525). She has been working toward achieving this for years and is very proud of what she has done.

“[My best accomplishments were] making it to Westerns for my second time this year and winning 2nd place on beam at Westerns this year,” said Montplaisir.

Amanda has been in gymnastics for most of her life. She started at Gymnation in Buffalo, but has since switched gyms. 5 years ago, she switched to the North Shore gym in Maple Plain and has been working with that team ever since.

“I started gymnastics when I was 3 years old because one of my friends invited me to a gymnastics class with her,” said Montplaisir.

Gymnastics meets consist of four events, Vault, Bars, Beam, and Floor. Amanda competes in all four, but likes some more than others.

“My favorite event is beam because there is a lot of variety of skills to learn and it has a lot of challenges to overcome.”

Amanda Montplaisir has accomplished so much in a short time and she’s constantly searching for more opportunities. She plans to continue doing gymnastics through high school and is undecided about college gymnastics.

Freshman Ben Kiernan said the word, “Eggplant. I picked the word eggplant because after school yesterday, on April 7 2015, I had a dream. I had a dream that I was in this pitch black room with this illuminated picture of an eggplant just floating in the middle of the room. I was very inspired by this picture, so when I woke up around midnight, I put it on Snapchat and I was a very happy person.”

“Decapitation. I was trying to find for a weird word,” said Sophomore Joey Patterson.

Senior Megan Veeder thought of the word, “Tigers. Because in Biology we were learning about animals.”

“Chickenpuffs. I don’t actually know why I thought of that, it just kind of popped into my head.  It’s my favorite food,” said Freshman Archie Bralllier.

Other students thought of single words without any explanation:

• Vladimir-Putin

• Cat

• Giraffe

• Viagra

• Carpet

• Clash

• Cucumber

• Sausage

• Cory

• Blubber

• Chinese

• Chicken

• Orange

• Mud

• Air-Jordans

• Sex

• Hola

Walking through the halls of BHS on Monday morning, you can see the tired eyes of hundreds of students. How much does daylight savings really affect a students education, especially in that first week?

Teachers and students alike have to deal with the effects of daylight savings. Teachers have to worry about getting themselves adjusted to the new time, and they have to help their students too. It can be difficult for teachers to get students to focus long enough to be able to teach them properly around daylight savings.

“Theres a couple [students] that were kinda complaining today… they claimed they were having a hard time adjusting [to the time change].” –Science teacher Greg Hygrell

There are numerous dangerous factors that can come from setting our clocks forward. Studies from a researcher at the University of Alabama show that there is a 10 percent increase in heart attacks in the days following daylight savings. There was also a study at Penn State that showed that it take a person 20% more time to do any task when there are disturbances in your sleep patterns.

It is much harder to get a normal nights sleep after daylight savings because of the nature of your biological clock. This lack of sleep can also contribute to more dangerous problems. There is an average of a 17% increase in traffic accidents on the day after daylight savings time. Most of these are caused by drowsy drivers on darker roads in the morning.

No matter where you are, you have probably felt the effects of the daylights savings time. Moving our clocks back help us move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening, which is very efficient. It is an important thing to do, so a couple of days of adjustment may be worth the end results.

One concern is that students will ask to go just to avoid spending time in class. Science teacher Jenn Sheedy handles this by letting one kid at a time use the restroom as many times as they want in the quarter,  as long as they sign their name on the front board. “It minimizes people raising their hands and saying, ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’, since it’s something they can take care of by themselves. [I also enforce it] to keep people in the classroom as much as possible and not to have 5 people messing around in the hallway,” she said.

Most world language classes and various others have a set amount of maximum passes you may use per quarter.  “Limiting people to use the bathroom is stupid because sometimes you just go to go… I know I have to [go] more than six times a year,” said Freshman Alex Hage.

German teacher Frau Strassburg on the other hand enforces the bathroom pass policy rule, “I have it the way I do simply because students think twice about missing class. A lot of students say they’ll take care of it before or after class and that way they’re not missing that time in class.” However, this doesn’t mean that students can’t go if they’ve used all of their passes, “I’m not going to not allow them to do so, they can go [if they need to], but for the most part, I think it does cut down on people leaving class. I think it’s important that they stay in class [as much as possible].”

Freshman Emma Adams sees both sides of the argument, “[Passes] can be helpful, depending on the class. Both have pluses and minuses.”

53% of Buffalo High School students surveyed do not get the minimum number of hours of sleep a person of their age needs. When surveying students, we found that on average students get anywhere from 5-10 hours of sleep per night.

“If you get a good sleep, then you can be more successful.” says freshman Lauren Cypress.

Students stay up late for many reasons. Sometimes it’s because of extreme amounts of homework, or saving homework until last minute, late at night. Other times,  it’s just because of choice, either on technology or something else recreational.

High school students are supposed to have 8-10 hours of sleep every night, however teenagers’ changing sleeping patterns make it so that it’s natural for them to not feel tired until 11:00pm. So, is it realistic to expect students to sleep for 8-10 hours? Lots of students have homework and after school activities that take up time in their days, and cause them to stay up later.

“I know students have a lot of other things to worry about like sports after school, or working jobs.” says Chemistry teacher James Didier.

Most kids also need at least an hour to get ready in the morning. This makes it nearly impossible for them to get their minimum of 8 hours every night.

“Nobody gets ten hours of sleep, you can imagine how many students aren’t getting the recommended amount and I think it does affect their academics.” Says Didier.

Not getting the recommended hours of sleep can lead to problems at home and at school. Being tired makes it more difficult to learn. Lack of sleep can make it much harder to problem solve, comprehend, and pay attention in class. This makes it more difficult to go about your day normally, especially if you have school work.

“I don’t think learning can happen even half as well when you are completely exhausted.” says Math teacher Emily Haugh.

Situations where kids are not getting enough sleep can range from just annoying to more serious. It can get to the point where kids are falling asleep in class, which happens more commonly than you might think.

“I’ve had students that are falling asleep daily” says Haugh.

Lack of sleep can also affect your attitude and personality. It causes you to act more moody and irritable. More dangerously, being sleepy while driving can lead to car crashes.

“When you are tired, you just don’t respond to the best of your abilities in any situation.” says English teacher Sandra Goers.

Currently, our district is debating if the Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose school starting and ending times should be changed for the 2015-16 school year. This would mean that the elementary schools would start school at 7:45 and the middle school and high school would start at 8:50, opposite to the current system. There are very mixed opinions on this concerning students, parents, and staff.

“[For] the people who are trying to get the [right amount of] sleep, it will be beneficial for them, and that’s what we should base our decisions on.” says Haugh.

Some people think that moving the start time back will give the students another hour of sleep, while others say that students will just stay up later, and not take advantage of the time.

Later start time or not, there are still other ways to improve your sleep schedule. Experts suggest turning off all electronics at least 3 hours before bed. They also say to try and keep a consistent sleep schedule. This includes not sleeping in late on the weekends.

Not getting enough sleep can majorly affect your life, relationships, and attitude. A lack of sleep can hurt your health in many ways, but can be improved with the correct amount of sleep each night.

Whether it’s because they don’t have their license yet, or that they don’t have a car, a number of high schoolers still have to find a way to get to school, and that’s usually the bus.

A typical school bus can fit between 48 and 60 students, and in order to fill one up, we need to put both high school and middle schoolers on the same bus.

High and middle schoolers can have varying opinions on sharing this space. Seventh grader Jocelyn Prince doesn’t think the high schoolers affect her much besides the length of her bus ride.

“Well, they are not annoying, but we get home later,” she said.

The more people ride a bus, the longer it takes to get everyone home.

Tenth grader Cyan Anderson thought differently, saying about the middle schoolers on her bus, “They’re really annoying. They’re loud and obnoxious.”

Just like freshman find middle schoolers annoying, and upperclassman find freshman annoying, these middle schoolers will soon be in our places, wondering if they used to be such annoying little kids.