The district has decided to shadow students to see what students go through in their day-to-day lives at school.

At Maize High, Sandra Nitcher is shadowing junior Maya Sherman and Jenny Meirowsky is shadowing a freshman Kennedy Topping all day today.

“Our goal is to get a feel for what it’s like to be a student,” Nitcher said. “To sit in class all day, see how the hallways feel, how the commons feel etc.” 

Nitcher said she hopes that she will get to talk to the rest of the teachers about it with Meirowsky to make a change for students.

“I want to be able to tell them about the positive things we saw and more importantly the things that were hard and frustrating,” Nitcher said. 

Meirowsky said they have to pick a target they want to reflect on from the whole day.

“I am still contemplating what I want to do,” she said. “But some of the example were how much time you guys spend on lectures, how much time you spend on sitting, and cell phone observations.”

Sherman said that she thinks somebody watching her all day is going to be a little weird.

“I am used to doing my own thing,” she said. “It’s going to be weird always having somebody right next to me.”

Meirowsky views the whole goal of doing this to make observations about what she expects of her students every day. 

“I just want to advocate for them,” she said. “And tell them [other teachers] what I saw in the one day that I was in their shoes.” 

Principal Chris Botts agreed with both teachers that the goal was to see what our kids experience every day at school.

“We just want to have a better picture of what our students go through on a day to day basis,” Botts said. “And when we look at our curriculum we want to make sure it’s meeting their needs.”

He said that he doesn’t know if anything will initially change, but he believes this is important data.

“I remember when I shadowed a student once and my mind was gone after two blocks,” Botts said. “This will give another perspective to always remember what it’s like to be a student.”