As Seren Pittman walked through the annex halls in the morning, she expected nothing. Nothing from that isolated building. She desperately looked around trying to find something that could make this separation worth it. The only feeling she found was that of tranquility, along with the chaos in her head. What would happen to all her friendships? The opportunities she would miss out on? Would everyone just forget about her?
Seren, along with almost half of the freshmen, were starting their first year at high school in an unexpected way. They were not in an actual high school. With no other choice, they were faced with accepting the truth.
They were outsiders.
“We missed out on everything, and everyone else was telling me about how good their first day of freshman year was, and I felt so left out.” Seren said
Seren was just one of the hundreds of students sent over to the annex last year, the 9th grade center housed in Roberts Middle School. With over 800 freshmen, Fulshear High School made the decision to send 300 of them to a temporary one-year building, worrying the students on who would stay on campus and who would be transitioned to the annex.
“It was really small and crowded and there were not that many people, everybody knew everybody at that point.” Seren said
Starting high school is a mix of emotions all at once, the main one being fear: fear of change, fear of what the future holds, but for most students, a big fear is losing friendships.
For many freshmen isolated at the annex, that was one of the biggest challenges they faced.
“I still said hi (to old friends), but most of them, I’m not friends with anymore,” Seren said. “I had one of my friends there (the annex) and I made one more but then that’s it. That’s all I had at the annex, all the rest of them were here (main campus).”
Of course, dividing a grade up has its advantages. Students didn’t have to deal with the overcrowded hallways and class periods, they could have a better learning environment overall. But at what cost? It wasn’t just the loss of friendships and opportunities that bothered these freshmen, it was the fact that they believed one of the biggest milestones in their life was gone.
“I feel like this is my first year (of high school),” a current sophomore, Sara Schiffer, said. “I definitely lost out on the things they (other students) had.”
They also faced the bus problem. When either being dropped off or picked up, the annex students were always the last ones, and in such an overcrowded school like Fulshear High School, it was a big issue for them.
“I was always getting the last seat, there was always no space on the bus. I had to walk all the way over to the high school (in order to get a spot).”
Being isolated from the community is one of the worst things that can happen to a teenager. Students depend so much on social interaction that anxiety raises as they wonder what will happen as everyone goes on with their lives without you there, especially when there is no choice.
“I didn’t get to see anybody, it was just trapped.” Sara said. “I was stuck there.”
