Dear LAHS Admin,

We know you care about our school. We care too, and that’s why we’re calling for open conversation with you.

This school year, we’ve identified a recurring problem: communication. The school community knows changes are being made, but from our interviews and conversations with students and staff, it seems that many of us are confused about what these new policies are and why they’re being implemented. 

The first part of the problem is relatively simple. You’ve made many changes in a short amount of time — the Almond Avenue drop-off policy, the tardy policy, the course selection process and changes to English Language Learner and learning support classes are just some examples. The lack of clear communication has made the changes difficult to keep track of — but on top of that, many of the details are vague and incomplete, leaving students in the lurch.

Take the tardy policy, for example. When the email announcement doesn’t include information about where lunch detention will be held, whether students will be allowed to stand in lunch lines before detention or if first-semester tardies count towards the 10 tardies, you’ll have students and teachers piecing the policy together from rumors and hearsay, which leads to confusion and frustration. As Talon writers, we’ve learned that if we bury important information too late in our articles, many of our readers will skim over it. Similarly, when you include important information about a new tardy policy in the middle of a 1300-word email, you should expect the vast majority of the student body to miss the announcement.

We urge you to continue sending emails with clearer guidelines or to communicate with The Talon so we can spread the news. But please — recognize that what you’re doing right now isn’t enough. If students aren’t hearing your message, then you’re communicating poorly.

We believe you aren’t fully utilizing an effective channel of communication: teachers. If you clearly share changes like these with teachers and give them a straightforward set of rules to read to the class and post on Canvas, you’ll reach the entire student body — not just those who read long emails all the way through. The added benefit is if you’re having these conversations, teachers can help you gauge if these changes are truly effective. But when the administration isn’t communicating with teachers, students are the ones who suffer.

The second part of the problem is more complex: We need transparency in the reasoning behind your decisions as well. This isn’t easy, but it’s necessary if you want to build trust. You have a lot of information the rest of the school doesn’t, but if you don’t share some of that information with us, your decisions can be hard to understand. Worse yet, we lose trust. 

Without proper communication, it’s hard to feel like the decisions are being made in our best interest. For example, making course changes more rigid to save resources feels like you’re prioritizing your workload over student wellness, especially when you implement these changes abruptly during course selection before asking for the student body’s input. In the absence of an explanation, LAHS is left to jump to conclusions.

When you’re transparent about your motives, you’re inviting discourse; you’re allowing the school to decide whether it agrees with your decision. But understand that when students ask questions, raise concerns or write and publish an open letter in their school newspaper, it doesn’t come from a place of baseless complaint — it comes from a place of shared interest in shaping policies that affect us. It’s because we care. 

Initiatives like the Principal’s Advisory Committee are a good start; we believe it shows that you’re genuinely interested in hearing student voices. But you actually have to take our voices into account during your decision-making, not just ask for feedback after you’ve already made a decision. Conversations and discourse are how we grow as a school because neither students nor administration alone has the full picture of LAHS — but together, we can get pretty close. 

So, LAHS administration, as a next step, on behalf of the student body and the larger school community, we’re inviting you to converse with all of us. This is not a one-time deal or an easy fix. Understanding our school — the sports teams, performing arts, culture clubs and many more student groups — takes incredible time and effort. But how else will you learn about scheduling challenges student-athletes face, fundraising obstacles student organizations deal with or the best way to mitigate tardiness? 

Here’s a student group you can start with: us. You’re invited to the Talon class, 5th period in P-9.  Talk to us about the changes you want to implement on campus, listen to our concerns and engage with us. But most importantly, don’t stop there — talk to the rest of the student body. If you wait for students to come to you, you’re limiting yourself to hearing only the loudest voices, voices that don’t always represent the incredible diversity of our student body.

You have the opportunity to teach LAHS how to bring different perspectives together. Students and staff have their own roles to play; they need to seize opportunities to participate in conversations if they want to create change. But that conversation starts with the administration.

We need you to step up. 

Sincerely,

The Talon Editorial Board