By Erica Kulash

Reporter

The Freshmen Center has done so much for the community in the past fifteen years to control things that would have been difficult with just one high school. Charlie Belt, South’s principal, fully believes in the ideals of the Freshmen Center and what it has done.

“The Freshmen Center brought everything back together for the two schools, and everybody going to one school again at the ninth grade center has done a lot, in my opinion, to heal some of those problems from when we went to two high schools,” Belt said.

One of the main reason for separating freshmen was the amount of students that would be crammed into Blue Springs South without the Freshmen Center. With freshmen at the high school, there would be over 2,100 students in one building. Overcrowding would make a lot of things more difficult during school, like getting to classes on time or having an average class size.

Blue Springs South sophomore, Jack Gillig said that he felt the biggest conflict at the Freshmen Center was definitely the amount of people there, but he was glad that they were there instead of at the high school.

Another purpose of the Freshmen Center was to help prevent upperclassmen from bullying the freshmen. Since the freshmen have barely any contact with upperclassmen, it has been a good solution in avoiding bullying. Bullying is a problem at many schools, so with it being decreased even slightly, by having the Freshmen Center, it is a major success for our district. This is just another way the Freshmen Center helps improve our community.

DJ Frost, a football player and sophomore at Blue Springs South, talked about his experience at the Freshmen Center and what made it easier.

“It was less stressful to be a freshman there and to not have to deal with all the upperclassmen,” Frost said.

The rivalry between Blue Springs and Blue Springs South will always be there, but by mixing both schools’ freshmen together in one building it helped create bonds between students from opposite schools. Many students had friends at their rival school, which made the rivalry less hostile and more of just a fun competition. Junior at South, Luke Eaton, talked about having friends at the other school.

“One of the hardest parts about leaving the Freshmen Center was saying goodbye to my good friend Ante, but we’re still the best of friends despite the cross-town rivalry,” Eaton said.

Charlie Belt also spoke on how high school was before the Freshmen Center was introduced.

“I came to South just a couple years after it opened and it was intense; it was not very comfortable, not a really healthy rivalry or situation between the two schools. The Freshmen Center has helped to bridge that gap. It brings kids together and kids are friends and get to know other kids from both sides of town because they’re sitting in the same classes together, and it has really helped to kind of heal some of those problems that came from having two high schools,” Belt said.