Just like any high school in America, West High has its faults. Unsafe things happen, not only is it a fact in high school but it’s a fact in the real world, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Recently, I asked a student at West High about an unsafe situation they have been in. That student described feeling “scared to go back to school because I knew they were from west.” This student was assaulted, they immediately reported the issue to the West High administration. When asked about how they felt admin handled the issue, they said “…admin didn’t take it very seriously.” They went on to say, “I think admin should’ve tried to help and figure out what was wrong until waiting until the next school day to start the investigation.” The student overall was “extremely unhappy by the way admin handled things, I just don’t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else.”

Every story has two sides, so next I went and talked to admin. I asked Vice Principal Sandoval what the protocol for handling a student-witness-report is and how that process is handled, he said “Sometimes an assistant principal is right with them depending on what the situation is… based on what the issue is and the student’s last name, it gets sent to a distinct assistant principal.” I went on to ask how important student safety to the West High administration was, Sandoval said, “Student safety and concerns are high on our priority list… anything with immediate student safety concerns goes straight to the top of the list.” Sandoval continued, “We just want to make sure students are safe.”

Though to some, this may seem like an unsolvable problem, but in reality, I don’t believe that it is. So much tension is created between administration and the student body, due to pure lack

of communication. We all want the same thing, we all want change, and we all want to make West High the safest it possibly can be, but it starts with you, it starts with me, it starts with us all. Sometimes all it takes is a little patience, a little communication and a lot of school pride.