Students and staff alike made their way into St. Andrew’s Church on September 3rd for Community High School’s opening ceremony. As the doors shut and the music slowed down, the chosen motto for the 2013-2014 academic year was displayed: ‘Believe it and achieve it.’ After the introduction of Community High staff, the list of clubs offered was projected for all to see; yells of excitement were made at the sight of club offerings such as Genetics and Pokemon Soccer. The writing abilities of students were on display as both poetry and rap were performed by seniors. Finally, after the cheering of each class, the students left the church and headed over to officially start the first school day with their forums.

The ceremony was the first glimpse the incoming freshmen had of Community. Tawliah Yalley, a freshman from Forsythe Middle School, was impressed by what he saw. He noted that his new classmates seem like fun people, “really rowdy,” he said, “which is good.

Due to the ceremony being first on each student’s agenda for the day, freshmen like Yalley, as he feels, were provided the opportunity to meet new people before classes even started. However, freshman Nathan Campain was uncomfortable with the timing of the ceremony. He thinks it should have been held at the end of the school day. Campain believes this would enable new students have a better understanding of how the school runs, which would then be followed by a recap of the students’ day at the ceremony and the coming together of a slightly more familiarized student body.

While some may have felt awkward, the ceremony provided incoming students with the perfect amount of enthusiasm and pride to at last walk into Community’s hallways and start the school year right.

Photos by Sophia Camp. See them via Flickr here.