Two big changes were enforced this year at RMHS. The world at Reading High has finally been restored for the better.
2017 started off with a bang with the new policy of allowing students to bring coffee to school. For my past years at RMHS, teachers underestimated the power of coffee. To students, coffee is liquid gold. Waking up at 6:00 am every morning as a teenager is tough. We look forward to simple moments of sipping our creamy, sugar filled, coffees while driving groggily to school. One of my first memories of high school was having to throw away my full medium iced mocha cappuccino. This doesn’t seem like a big deal to most, but to me it was like throwing money down the drain. Some teachers don’t mind students drinking coffee, mainly in the morning, but once it hit B block teachers expected you to finish your drink or throw it out. For most of the student body suffering sleep deprivation, coffee is an essential. Without it, students would be zombies and days would be completely unproductive. Now, with the ability to bring coffee to school, students are more awake and capable of paying attention.
This year, RMHS has also granted students the opportunity to wear hats. When I first started as a nervous freshman I didn’t know what to expect with the dress code. I remember in middle school the silly rules that stated how you had to have shorts that were as long as to where the tips of your fingers reached your thighs when your hands were by your side. To me, this was unfair due to my lengthy arms compared to others shorter arms. However, one code I always followed was the no hat rule. I had always been told that wearing a hat in school was disrespectful and frowned upon. However, during my freshman year, people had still worn hats. With upperclassmen as my role model, I had done the same...only to be shut down by faculty members at the school. I was heartbroken. I have the biggest hat collection of various sports teams, colleges, and my favorite places, and I wanted to show them all off. I am a big supporter of the new hats allowed rule. It gives students like myself a way to represent themselves and their passions. This is something I never got a chance to do within the restricting hallways of middle and elementary school.