January 15, 2020
Written by Megan Corey ’21
As Durham Academy’s Freshman, Sophomore, and Senior classes fall into the monotony of the school year, their Junior peers are making history. With almost 46 eleventh grade classes passing through Durham Academy’s Upper School, none have gained off campus privileges. However, this may take a turn within the next year as the Junior class pushes to change the status quo.
Currently, according to the Durham Academy All-School Handbook, “Underclass students,” defined in this context as Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors, “are not permitted to leave campus in cars either as drivers or passengers prior to the end of their last class of the day.” Underclass students that have their license are allowed to drive to and from campus every day but cannot generally leave after 8:15 am and before 3:15 pm, without a sufficient excuse. Seniors, however, are able to leave campus during the day as long as they do not have class. This may not seem like a big deal to some students and faculty, but many seniors genuinely benefit from their somewhat restricted freedoms.
Many 12th graders have different opinions based on whether or not they have free periods and when these periods are throughout the day. Claire Ridley, a senior, explains, “I use [my off campus privileges] about twice a week. If I forget a book at home, it’s really helpful for me to go and get it.” Driving home during the school day is not only convenient, but cathartic as well. Senior Julia Phu only uses these privileges “two or three times a month.” But, as tedium and the strenuous workload from classes build, she agreed that “sometimes [we all] just need a break from school so going off campus to get lunch is really fun and relaxing.”
Henry Leasure, junior class president, has spearheaded this grade-wide movement. Despite not personally being passionate about the idea, he wants to represent the needs of the Junior class. He relayed, “Generally speaking, I wouldn’t like using it. I like to stay on campus. I don’t really use the food trucks when I am here. I would say I would probably not use it much myself. But it is something that matters to a lot of people, as evidenced by the petition; we had 92 people sign the petition out of 102 possible. Clearly it’s something people care about and its part of my job as class president to do what people want.”
The petition Henry refers to is the extent of the Junior push for new privileges. This petition, which is currently in the works and will soon be underway, enumerates the guidelines juniors will need to follow in order to gain off-campus opportunities. “It’s not a done deal at this point.” says Lindy Fraser. This tedious process has been slowly but deliberately moving forward due to the details and rules needed for this new privilege. “There would be a number of criteria that a junior would have to meet. The junior would have to be in good standing and obviously have their license. The things we would probably be looking at would be that juniors would need to have their Rent-a-Junior hours completed and they would not have a disciplinary record that puts them out of good standing, which we use for seniors as well.” explained Ms. Fraser. The administration has made it clear that “it would be a privilege to be earned by juniors rather than one just bestowed upon everybody.”
There are some concerns that accompany this new acquisition. “In meetings [with the Student Life Committee and the Student Life Advisory Board], one of the concerns brought up was issues of sustainability and having that many more cars potentially going off-campus.” Ms. Fraser pointed out, “some of the other concerns would be about Ms. Evans having to monitor that many people coming and going.” Both students and the administration are currently holding negotiations and revising the petition to hopefully mitigate these qualms. The guidelines that Student Life Advisory Board and the Sustainability Committee have come up with have addressed a majority of the concerns presented.
Ms. Fraser finally adds, “I am so impressed with the Junior leadership because the idea of petitioning and requesting to have these off campus privileges has [been]floated to other junior classes previous to this by Mr. Wilson, and nobody has ever really pursued it until this time. We were happy to see this initiative and are impressed with the juniors getting it off the ground and the overwhelming response to the petition. It was very well thought out.” With continued leadership and support as well as careful deliberation, our campus may soon bear witness to this impressive Junior victory as the class of 2021 goes down in Durham Academy history.
[Edit: The Junior class of ‘21 officially received off-campus privileges on February 14, 2020 thanks to the hard work of our class council.]