The new school year has brought many changes to our daily student life.  Some of these, such as the new look to some of the Math department hallways, are fairly obvious to the student body.   But others may be a bit more subtle.

For example, many students may not have had the experience of using Schoology, the program which will be replacing Blackboard next year.  The program is incredibly similar to Facebook, which is probably one of the reasons that the administration chose it over the sometimes temperamental Blackboard.  Ideally by next year all teachers will have switched their class updates over to Schoology, but for now students will be stuck in transition between the two.
A change that most students probably know about is the new parking lot arrangement that has been put in place this year.  The front lot that was previously available to everyone is now closed off to the student body and is reserved for staff and volunteers only.  To make up for the lost parking, the school has opened up a new lot down by the football field.  The parking lot is helpful to the student body, although it doesn’t really do anything by the way of reducing traffic in the parking lot after school.  It also causes an added jam up on the hill leading from the football field up to the main parking lot.  Students who made the decision to park down there should take all that added traffic into consideration when they’re making plans for when to leave school in the afternoon.

Most people at the school are familiar with the “Reveal What’s Real” campaign, but they may not have seen some of the newer features to the program.  This year the drug councilor Nancy Olson-Engebreth has kicked it up a notch and has recruited some of the student body to help her run the campaign.  In an attempt to reach more of the students, they have hung banners from the ceiling of the Student Union for everyone to see.  For anyone who doesn’t know, the Reveal What’s Real Campaign is using a series of informational posters and banners in an attempt to raise awareness about the habits of Minnetonka students in regard to alcohol use.

Something new that will be available later this year is what’s known as a “Hybrid Class”.  A Hybrid Class is a normal class that is available for students to attend over the internet.  This idea would appeal to older students because it would allow them to have an open hour during the day but still get a credit for the class.  These classes will become available later on in the year, so not much information has been given to the student body.  We will likely being seeing more and more of these as the school year goes on, but for now we just have to hope for the best.

As always, the new school year has brought with it many new changes.  They aren’t very dramatic, but could still take some time for older students to get accustomed to.