A new semester can bring forth a lot of change, and for the administration team at Camas High School (CHS), a time to approach ongoing problems within the school to remind students of the importance of pre-established guidelines. 

Due to an alarming crisis of tardiness in first period, as well as weakening adherence to mask mandates put in place by the State of Washington, administrators took action.

“Next week begins our new semester and in light of that, we want to spend the month of February reviewing some behavior expectations with students,” Darci Jones, the Dean of Students at Camas, wrote in an email which was forwarded to teachers on Jan 27. 

As a motivation for obedience to these guidelines, there will be a raffle in which classes will be monitored by student leadership, and the classes that most closely follow the reinforced guidelines will be rewarded with a donut party. 

While the first week of this friendly class competition has already concluded, it will continue for the entirety of February, though some of its policies leave students hoping that it will continue no further. 

“These are high school students. I don’t think we should be holding their hands and be like ‘you want a cookie?’ just for keeping their mask on,” freshman Ava Jones said.

This perception of the competition as a juvenile is not uncommon either. While the issue of attendance faced little opposition, the mask-wearing provisions are widely criticized. 

“It’s pretty dumb. It’s kind of like they’re treating us like elementary students,” junior Blake Baude said.

However, high school students are often more adamant in their angst than elementary students. 

At Washougal High School, a mere 15-minute drive from Camas, a large group of students organized and executed a protest against mask mandates by refusing to follow state guidelines on the first day of their second semester. 

Nationwide, similar protests are occurring, serving as inspiration for a smaller demonstration here at Camas, resulting in the participants being asked to leave for the day. 

The donut party also received criticism for its counterintuition, as the reward for adherence to mask guidelines in this competition encourages students to take their masks off for the donut party. 

However, this was merely intended to be a fun competition. 

 ¨This is a great, clean break for us to remember how we need to behave at school,¨ Pitassi said. 

Perhaps this competition is useless, perhaps it isn’t. What this competition does do, however, is start a conversation about rules within the school, and encourage accountability amongst students. 

Until the mask mandate is possibly removed, towards the end of March as is currently proposed, mask-wearing will hopefully continue adequately.