“Ballin,” yells South Kingstown High School senior Brandon Sweet as he drains a crumpled up math test into the trash can from across the room.

  “That can be recycled!” shouts SKHS senior Alisha Daniels.

   “It doesn’t matter—the janitors throw it all in the same garbage bin anyway,” retorts Sweet.

  At SKHS, going green has become a new fad. Everyday students are seen carrying around their aluminum water bottles, helping Mr. O’Malley in the garden and of course recycling.

  Students for Justice president Emily Cotter has worked extremely hard over her time at SKHS to place recycling bins in every classroom at the school.

  During Cotter’s sophomore year she found, “stacks and stacks of bins in the first floor storage area were not being used.”

  Cotter and the other members of Students for Justice decided to gather up the recycling bins and placed them in every classroom.

  Now, a typical class room will contain two recycling bins: one for paper materials and one for plastic materials. Additionally, the cafeteria contains two 55 gallon plastic bottle recycling bins, located on opposite sides in the center of the cafeteria.

  On most days, however, a number of recycling bins appear to be overfilling with bottles and paper, just waiting to be sent off to the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Center to be recycled.

  “Janitors won’t dispose of the recyclables because it is not in their contract,” said Cotter.

  The custodians tell another story.

   “If the bins are sorted correctly I don’t have an issue recycling,” said SKHS custodian Laurie Ricks. “However, I can’t speak for others.”

  According to SKHS Head Custodian Carol Leahy, “Recycling has been an issue” at the high school.

“Some custodians’ feel they should not be responsible for it because it is an added task for them to do,” Leahy said.

  Many students, however, seem unaware of the time and effort it takes to properly recycle the so called “recycled items” in the recycling bins.

  Students often place food and other unwanted items into the recycling bins. Therefore, in order for the custodians to properly dispose of the recycled items, they are forced to sort through each individual bin to ensure that all of the items can be recycled.

  “We have paper recycling bins containing food, so we end up trashing the bins all together,” said Leahy.

  SKHS principal Mr. McCarthy said that the custodians are only expected to recycle materials that are properly sorted.

  “I don’t think it’s their responsibility if a bin has a little bit of everything—they should just throw it in the trash,”  McCarthy said.

  Nonetheless, Cotter contends the recycling bins are constantly overflowing with bottles, paper and other materials. Some members of Students for Justice have taken their own initiative to dispose of the recycling bins themselves.

  “During my sophomore year we would go on Fridays and bring the recycling bins outside of the cafeteria where the dumpsters are,” said Cotter.

  Cotter said that she and the rest of Students for Justice have not been able to keep up with the recycling process solely by themselves.

   “It is tough to have the recycling program with only five people,” Cotter said. “It is almost impossible.”

  Leahy said that the custodians at SKHS are on a tight schedule and do not have the time to sort through every recycling bin. Therefore, she said, recycling at SKHS cannot be a reality unless students begin to properly dispose of recyclable and un-recyclable materials.

  “We are happy to do our part, but it’s hard,” Leahy said.

  Despite the extra work, Mr. McCarthy said that “he has received a commitment from the custodians that they will recycle.”

  If SKHS is ever going to have an effective recycling program, McCarthy added, students need to do their part and place materials in their proper bins

  Despite its failures at SKHS, other regional schools have effective recycling programs.

  Pioneer Valley Regional High School, Northfield Massachusetts, which is north-west of Boston has had an effective recycling program for 3-4 years.

  “We compost paper and food waste and recycle bottles and cans,” said PVRHS principal Bill Wehrli.

  Wehrli believes PVRHS’s  recycling program has grown to be successful because “there are three sets of bins in 25 different locations throughout the school.”

  Wehrli knows that students will throw away paper, bottles or trash in the bin that is to their convenience. Therefore, Wehrli strategically places three bins in every location, allowing to students to dispose of materials correctly, without forcing them to go out of their way.

  PVRHS’s recycling program has proved to be successful because they have reduced their waste by 80 percent. Plus, Wherli said the school has “saved a fair amount of money,”  and he thinks the recycling program is “tremendous.”

  As seen at PVRHS, a public high school can have an effective recycling program. But, cooperation between students and faculty is essential.

  “If we want to have a recycling program at SKHS, students and teachers need to be involved,” said Cotter.

“Kids in general should be allowed to leave advisory because if you have something to do, you can’t leave class. And advisory is a good time to do that.”

  SKHS senior Alexis Howland does not believe in the new guideline given to teachers, which states that students are not allowed to leave advisory for anything other than the bathroom.

  Many say this new guideline has caused problems for students, as advisory may be the time to visit guidance or other important things.

  Liz Spink, another SKHS senior, also believes students should be allowed to leave advisory.

  “You should be allowed to leave advisory to go to Guidance and other areas,” said Spink.

  Even some teachers agree with the students.

  “I think that its [advisory leaving] ridiculous because quite often, it’s the only free time students have,” said Ms. Bjorness-Sodhi, whose daughter is a senior at the school.  “And if you need to get paperwork in the library, get signatures, or do colleges work, they can’t.”

  Many days of the week , however, the guidance office remains open after school  for students to meet with counselors and take care of such tasks.  

  The department head of guidance, Ms. Majeika, says that advisory is more of a time to create a personal connection between the student and the advisory teacher.

  “One of the tenets of the Rhode Island Department of Education is that they didn’t tell you to do it one way, they gave you some ideas, but the emphasis was on the fact that someone besides the school counselor would be in the building, available for that student to connect to,” said Majeika.

  Majeika also states that SKHS decided to use the homeroom model, so that students would ideally have the same advisor for four years.

  Librarian Ms. Lavin, for most part, agrees with Majeika.

  Lavin says, “I believe it’s a good policy in general, but exceptions should be

Lavin says, “I believe it’s a good policy in general, but exceptions should be allowed in case of emergency.”

Majeika also stated that she currently participates in an Advisory Steering Committee.  The committee is formed in part by Mrs. Majeika, Mr. McCarthy, Mrs. Klenk, and Ms. Fagan.

  Formed when Advisory began (around five to six years ago, according to Mrs. Majeika), the committee determines what goes on in Advisory.

  “Another use for Advisory is as a vehicle for Guidance and other areas of the school to get important things out to students such as report cards or transcripts,” Majeika said.

  “Your advisor has access to your grades, can talk to you about your grades, can talk to you about your schedule, and when it [Advisory] started.  We actually developed a notebook of ideas of activities that were grade specific,”  said Mrs. Majeika.

  According to Ms. Lavin, the advisory policy is good because, for example, “Guidance stays open until at least 3:00 p.m.”

  According to multiple guidance counselors, not many students take advantage of the fact that guidance usually stays open until 3:00 p.m., and even until 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays.

  Also, Lavin says, “If teachers are involved with a number of students, and more students come in to do work, the original students are marginalized.”

  Majeika understands the need for the other things students must do, but she emphasizes the personal connection.

  “In order for advisory period to accomplish what it needed to do, students needed to be in their advisory period, not wandering the hall, not doing errands in the hall,” said Majeika.

  When asked specifically about coming down to Guidance, Ms. Majeika says that advisory is a time for students to establish the personal connection, not to get important things done.

  While Mrs. Majeika says she “appreciates” the idea of people having only Advisory to see a counselor, she focuses more on the “personal connection” idea of Advisory.

  The idea of a “personal connection” does not go over well with Bjorness-Sodhi and Howland, however, Bjorness-Sodhi said, “Let me ask you this: As a senior, don’t you think that there’s more to be done than establishing a connection?  I think that if you’ve been with an advisory teacher for four years, there have been countless opportunities to establish a connection.”

   “Kids in general should be able to leave because if you have something to do, you can’t leave class,” Howland said, “and advisory is a good time to do that.”

Administration at South Kingstown High have recently changed the school dance policy. The dance committee has recently decided to ban grinding, or freak dancing, at all school dances and events.

  Administrators believe that the events that take place at school functions reflect poorly on the students, school and community.

  Ms. Windley, a retired teacher from SK, and member of the community believes “it is demoralizing” to the students who partake in the type of dance.

  In the past parents and teachers pushed for a ban on grinding but with lisle success.

  Those who pushed for the change believe the dance is degrading to the students.   They say that social status and reputations places unfair pressure on kids to partake in the dancing. Many find such dancing to be a sexual act that will make it more likely for kids to partake in sex.

  While administration and parents believe it to be a victory, numerous students disagree with the result.

  “I don’t think grinding is sexual at all,” says senior Jeff Booth.

  “There is a lot of pressure on the administration from parents to take action,” says one student, ”but would they rather have us go out on a Friday night, get drunk and have sex.”

  In a conversation an SKHS sophomore, Richard Woo, stated that, “grinding is unique to our generation…while our parents swing danced, high schoolers today grind.”

  In response, a junior, Morgan Stafford said that, “[Adults] are judging it blindly, because each generation acts differently.

I’m not going to say its the best type of dance, but nobody will go if they are not allowed to dance that way.”

  While most students agree that it could be inappropriate, they agree that the way students dance should not be limited by adults.

  Jacob Sargent admitted that he personally finds grinding unattractive, but states that, “The adults shouldn’t restrict our personal freedom of expression.”

  Many students interviewed said that they would not go to the dances if they were not allowed to grind.

  Sophomore Zachary Campo said, “I will never go to a dance again.”

 SKHS senior Seth Noon agreed that, “Nobody is going to go, but it needed to be done because of the pressure put on some kids.”

  Jeff Booth, however, thinks that the rule, “Is pretty stupid, no one is going to go, and then there will be no more dances.”

  Dances are the major fundraiser for a class, and most of the revenue acquired from these dances goes toward junior and senior prom as well as the senior class trip.   The junior class is planning the annual “Pulse” dance for February, but students wonder whether or not enough tickets will be sold to hold the event.

  If a class does not raise a large sum of money, the prices for the prom tickets will be much higher, and the location for these events will be less glamorous than it would have been.   Some students wonder if they will be able to afford the tickets to the prom.

Michael Mulroy says, “It isn’t really necessary, but administration thinks it is.”