MECA’s new houses came with many changes to the competitions and events, which led to an uproar among students with the changes. Let’s see which majority of the students like the original houses better or the new ones better!
Out of 115 people, 75 people like the old Greek letter houses and 40 like the new deck of cards houses. Overall, the freshman seemed to like the new houses better, while the upper grade levels liked the original ones better.
Many people were sad about the change because they liked the old houses. “I really liked that I was in delta,” said sophomore Patricia Galvan, “[be]cause normally it’s a term used in math and also green so that’s my favorite color.”
But freshmen did not have the same connection with the houses as kids in the upper grades. “I am neutral about it because I never knew the old houses,” James Phan, freshman, said.
ASB did not choose to change the houses on their own. “Originally, it wasn’t my or ASB’s decision to change the houses; we were prepared to go ahead with the Greek houses,” ASB President Kristabella Rodriguez explained. “However, our principal, Dr. McDonnell, wanted a switch to go along with how other schools have themes each year so that is what we went with.”
After being told that there would be new houses, ASB decided on the theme themselves. Rodriguez says, “We let other ASB students come up with the theme ideas, and ASB as a whole decided on card suites and the four signs: water, earth, fire, and air.”
Traditionally, students have always been sorted into houses randomly, with previous years even having a mock “sorting hat” like the iconic figure from the Harry Potter franchise. But this year, ASB sorted the student privately. Rodriguez explained that the private sorting was meant to have “an equal amount of grade levels and gender of students in each house” and for “more friends to be in houses to encourage spirit.”
Andres Bocardo, senior, thought that past houses were unfairly sorted because more students with athletic abilities were in certain houses. “I would split some people up like Xander [Small] and Jackson [Jensen] up just to make the competitions fair.”
Several upper class students felt the change was abrupt. Sophomore Joshua Fermalino revealed, “I’m perfectly fine with the house I’m in, but I’m not really fine with like the change that happened.”
Galvan agrees, saying, “We were told that we would have the same house for all four years of our high school, and I figured that I would stay in the green one [be]cause that would make sense,… but I got a completely different house, which is really weird.”
Some think that there might have been better ways to handle changing the houses. “I would have liked [to have] seen the whole school kind of getting involved in the process,” Courtney Bell, English teacher, posited, “instead of it just being ASB.” This idea might have allowed for more buy-in from all students, especially those resistant to change.
Fermalino thinks that the changes shouldn’t have been made. “I’d say just revert it to the old one because that was perfect,” he elaborates.
Ultimately, change is always hard. “The old houses made more sense than new houses, so yeah, but I guess it just takes time to get used to,” said Bocardo.
