The main gym is filled with Tahoma students who are cheering to loud music for their pep assembly. Most are engaged and supportive of one another, some are just there to watch with friends and a few sit alone in the stands.

Throughout the whole gym filled with students, there are still some who feel like they don’t belong. The Tahoma school system wants to be a welcoming place where students feel like they belong and want to come to school. What really makes the school welcoming is students and peers being accepting of them. “We should be doing more activities that encourage students to communicate with others,” said freshman Karen Aguilar.

By doing more of these types of “ice breaker” activities like in the first few days of school, it really helps to get students more familiar with people around them and get to know them better. Especially if you don’t have any friends in that classroom, it’s a great way to make some new friends by just talking to them.

However, this isn’t a unanimous opinion. “Stop forcing students [to] talk to each other because it makes me not what to do that even more.” said junior Kara Woodard.

Even if a student didn’t want to, it’s a great way to talk to people if you’re shy, need a friend and want to have some bonding with students. But when you don’t have many friends to associate with, then that might be an issue. “They probably can’t find people with the same interest as them,” said Aguilar.

But by already having a hard time with feeling accepted in the school, finding people to associate with could be difficult. And these relationships and connections aren’t limited to how students interact with each other.

“Most teachers view their students as the next generation, so they try to teach us the best they can,” said senior Destiney Hyatt. Teachers try their hardest to connect with students so they have a bond and get to know their students personally. The staff at Tahoma High School is trying their hardest to create a welcoming place where students feel as if they belong.

There’s much to improve on to create the perfect environment but the key to fixing that is to have a bond with people. For students to get engaged with one another in team building activities will help get them out of their shell and this will help them be confident in who they are and feel welcomed with the people and environment of the school.