CHANGES, CHANGES, AND MORE CHANGES

MARK MOODY, HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL; PHOTO BY ELLA STINEMAN

Change is inevitable, and as we enter the new year, we are not only seeing changes in the world but also in our school. Some new things that have been implemented are changes in the schedule for both the middle school and high school, a new principal, a new elementary school being built, etc. As humans, we are entitled to have our own opinions on things. Some of these new changes are upsetting to people, others are neutral, and some people are happy with these changes. To really form a good opinion, all sides of the story should be known. With that being said, what goes into the planning process of making changes for the school?

  Making changes is already hard enough, so you can only imagine the amount of stress that comes with the planning process for making changes for schools. Leaders within the school district must first address problems that are happening. Some of those problems have easy solutions, while many of them, while it seems like they have easy solutions, actually take a lot of back-and-forth decision-making. Being one of the leaders of this school district, high school principal Mark Moody agrees that these decisions take a lot of planning. He goes on to also say, “You need to look at how different scenarios play out” and "what will have the best outcome”. 

Knowing this, it can only be assumed that this process takes a lot of time. But good things take time, and they are trying to consider not just every factor but every person. Meaning, that while one decision might be the most popular, it does not necessarily make it the best. 

One of the biggest changes that should be noted is the building of the sixth new elementary school in the Clear Creek Amana school district, called East Ridge Elementary. This project dates back to March 2022 for the 2022 bond project. Along with many other amazing things, people in the CCA community voted on building a new elementary school. Lots of progress has been made since 2022. 

As of now, the last update in December 2023 included the chosen name for the elementary school and progress on construction. The school is said to open in either 2024 or 2025. But that is not the only change happening. Just before the second semester of this year, changes in schedules for both middle school and high school were made. As the years continue to go on, more and more students are filling up the middle school and high school, and while this is great, it is causing problems, especially in the parking lot. There are many vehicles trying to exit both the middle school and high school, and it was not really working out. The main idea behind making the high school get out 5 minutes before the middle school was that it would help clear up some of the traffic, but has it? High school Senior Ace Helgens feels like it has not been very helpful, and when asked about one change they would bring back if given the choice, they said that they would bring back the "original school end time,”. Helgens, even though they are senior, leaves the school at 3:25 and still feels that there is a struggle in the parking lot, but this is not the only change Helgens brought up. They also feel like putting people of the same grades in certain CLTs was not a beneficial choice. Helgens says this because they believe that CLT is a good time “to be with people of all grades, meet new people, and expand your social circle,”. High school is a very critical experience for many people, and this change is holding back students from having the potential to venture out. While this change works out well for organizational purposes, that is all it really does. Should this decision be put above the people of this school? While there are a lot of new changes going on this year, the majority of people are aware that high school principal Mark Moody is retiring this year. While this news is saddening, Moody says that this was “more of a personal decision than a professional one” because, as his kids are getting older, he doesn't want to miss that because “I missed a lot of things when they were younger because the job demands so much,”. Being a principal is not easy, and while Moody enjoyed his time, he felt that, as he approached the age where he could retire, it was his time to pass the torch. 

Just in January 2024, it was shared that Clear Creek Amana's new high school principal will be the one and only Tom Daniels. No one ever really likes change. As humans, unless it is something that will fully benefit us, we avoid it, and then we still do avoid it at times. But as time goes on, change is happening all around us, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The only two options we have are to ignore it or embrace it, but eventually, we can't ignore it anymore, and then we have to do something about it. So in the famous words of Maya Angelou, "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude."