Community at hall high school is a lesson that is done in second period every Wednesday to bring awareness to current social issues and a way of teaching the entire school something important that needs to be brought to students attention. 

Community is meant to be a way of teaching equality, but it is not done well. “I think community has a good purpose but it just feels boring and forced at many points.” says Drew Shapiro.  Among students, it is also felt as if community isn’t given the attention it deserves and it isn’t actually worked on with the amount of effort it should.  School just tries to act like they care what is going on, says Nayeli Bravo.  Community doesn’t actually give the feeling that the school cares about current issues. 

Although community has its downsides, it does also have things that students feel are done well.  Based on the graph about if community should be more or less integrated into our day there is a majority that believes it is integrated into our day well.  The other thing done well is the meaning behind community.  “I think the concept of community is effective for what you mention, but I think this iteration of community is working, no.” says Kelly Fransen, an English teacher at Hall High School.  So the whole idea of community and the idea of bringing people together is a great idea, but how it is being done is not. 

Now for the idea of if community is actually bringing people together.  For this question, there were mixed opinions.   Jacob Walters says, “No, it separates more than brings people together because most of the topics are only one-sided,”

On the contrary, “Yes, because it helps us understand other races and why they are different and how we can come together to accept them for who they are.” says Shona Jacob.  So in the eyes of different people, community is bringing people together and for others, it does not. 

The mood meter is a chart that is used in all community lessons. The mood meter is a good concept because it is important to understand where you are mentally before having serious conversations, but because many students don’t have the skill to truthfully recognize where they are, it ends up not working,  says Kelly Fransen.

Similar to the mood meter, the Courageous Compass is used in every community lesson to introduce the lesson.  “It took me like 30 years to understand the compass and I understood it 2 years

ago, and I think without a deep history with the compass it’s hard to understand how it’s affecting you.” says Justin Boucher, a Hall High School Psychology Teacher.  So students that don’t understand the compass are just blindly answering where they are without actually effectively responding to benefit the conversation. 

What needs to be done to fix community is, “Clearly describe lesson goals and how the information relates to students and the real world.” says acsa.  Community isn’t well introduced and the lessons are random. It needs more meaning behind it.  We also need to include students in the planning and execution of the community, says acsa.  This is currently not being done with community at hall high school. 

Finally, responses from a survey sent out to students say that having lessons that are more intriguing but still informative would be better. Have it be schoolwide like the veterans day community more often.  And finally, Some feel that community would be more beneficial as an optional session.