Student’s opinions on eighth grade activities

As you know, the eighth grade activities are coming up, so we wanted to inform you about the location, dates, and the students’ opinions about the eighth grade activities. We also interviewed two students and asked about their opinions on the activities.

According to Ms. Alamilla, the first activity will be the dance.  This is exclusive to eighth graders and will be happening on Saturday, June 10th from 6:00 p.m to 9:00 p.m at school.

The second activity is the Six Flags trip that will be happening on Monday, June 12th.

The day after, on Tuesday, June 13th, there will be two events. First would be the culmination practice. That will happen in the school gym.  Immediately after is the beach field trip.

Finally, on Wednesday, June 14th, we will have the eighth graders’ culmination.

These activities require different amounts of payment depending on what will be provided to you. The least expensive event would be the dance, which would be $10 presale and would go up to $20 if you pay the night of the dance. This event includes a DJ, a catered dinner, and a professional photo booth.

The next most affordable event is the beach field trip, which would be $15 and will pay for the bus and the provided school lunch.

The most expensive event is the Six Flags trip. For $95 it will pay for the bus, a food voucher for any restaurant at the park, and the ticket to enter.

Ms. Alamilla had an opinion about the trip and she said, “I think the trips are fun and we try to have a variety of things that students can do as well as a variety of prices because some things are more expensive than others. But I do feel that some of the trips should be spread out because everything happens at the end, and so some of the things lose their effect, like there are field trips back to back. Instead of having maybe an event in the first semester and having field trips here and there, I think it could also motivate students to start doing better with their behavior and with grades earlier in the school year instead of waiting until the last minute.”

Ms. Alamilla wanted to change the event to make them more student involved. She said, ”One thing is getting students more of a say or option about where we go. The trips were selected by the adults, it’s not like any students had a say on where we were going. So that’s something I would change, but I also don’t know what the options are because the school also has to follow certain rules.”

Many students are very excited for these trips, as they get to hang out with their friends and make some fun and exciting memories together on their last few days of middle school. However, some students may have more of a preference to which activities would be more fun to them. Kenya Guevara said, “I’d rather go to the park instead of the beach because it’s a little less messy and the beach is more dangerous, and the park it’s just a good place to go because of childhood and see how far we come in life.” 

Another opinion from an eighth grade student is Victor H. Marcellez. He thinks that some of the trips will be a little awkward because of the conditions we have to go to. He said, ”I would change the beach trip because it will probably be awkward.” Victor also said, “I would change the beach trip for an arcade trip.” Victor said these things because the beach trip could be in more interesting locations like some of the more popular beaches such as Santa Monica, Malibu, Venice, and Long Beach. These are much better locations than the one that we are going to. Or we could change the location to a more suitable place for fun such as an arcade.

So in conclusion, we are hoping that these students’ opinions can help change the eighth grade activities into a better and a more fun experience for incoming eighth graders. From the time we are writing this, there are only four days left in school until we are able to do our activities, so we hope this information has been helpful to culminating eighth graders, and incoming eighth graders.