Saratoga News

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Freshman Alina Shah waits for her mom to pick her up after her first day of high school at SHS.

This year, freshmen are everywhere at SHS

Baby Boom Echo takes enrollment up

By Jeff Kearns

If nothing else, summer can be a sometimes painful lesson in impermanence. Even last week, as students returned to class at Saratoga High School, the sky was blue, birds sang in the trees and the sun shone idiotically, but even though it may have felt like summer, the first bell rang on Tuesday, Aug. 15, at 7:55 a.m. sharp.

Actually, it's not a bell, but rather a long, flat tone. But it means the same thing: Be in your seat.

This year, however, there are more seats--and more students--than last year. According to principal Kevin Skelly, enrollment is up from 1,065 last year to 1,125 this year, thanks to the Baby Boom Echo, or the national rise in birthrates that came somewhere around the end of the first Reagan administration and the beginning of the second Reagan administration, when the economy started looking up again after a rather unpleasant recession.

"The freshmen are, like, everywhere," said Kaela Meyer, who was a freshman last year, when she sat on the lawn under the trees, like this year's new bumper crop. "We used to eat on the grass," said Meyer, who was eating her granola bar, peanut butter and jelly bagel, bag of Fritos and peach at a picnic table with a group of friends.

Most of the new faces are freshmen, Skelly said as he walked around the main quad at lunchtime eating from a container of pasta salad, politely reminding a group of freshman girls not to leave their trash on the lawn.

Skelly, who only got a couple weeks for summer vacation, said everything was going smoothly. "It's like launching a shuttle, and today's liftoff," he said. "It's energizing to have the kids back."

The students didn't compare it to liftoff, and none claimed to be energized. Most just made faces and rolled their eyes.

"This school's too hard," said junior Mike Robinson, unfolding the laser-printed class schedule that tells him where to go, at least for the first week or so. "Homework takes too much of my free time."

Jeffrey Chen, a sophomore, didn't mind coming back. The Dungeons and Dragons game he's playing with three friends has been on hold all summer, and he's winning. "Now we pick up where we left off 12 weeks ago," Chen said. "I'm surprised they held it."

Sophomore Jon Johnson, who plays bass drum in the marching band, hasn't had any time for games. The week before school means band camp every day from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the beginning of school means rehearsal every morning at 7 a.m. Presumably, the payoffs come when football season starts in October.

Adam Weiskel, who plays guard for the Falcons, has also been practicing, lifting weights, exercising and doing drills. Weiskel is eager for the season to start but wasn't happy about going back to school.

It was easy to tell who was a senior, especially those who wore T-shirts with the word "Senior" written in red on the front, and a red "'99" on the back. Jodi Prior, a senior wearing the shirt, said the senior class is selling the shirts to raise money for events like the prom, which is still several months off but never too early to think about.

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