Seniors Feel the Loss of Seniority as Juniors Tackle the Student Section During Football Games

Ryan Healy

Student Section shows support for Stallions versus Great Oak during the Homecoming game.

Emily Wale, Staff Writer
October 6, 2019

The class of 2020 has just begun to experience both the joys and pressures of being seniors, having had their first taste of senior seating during pep rallies and the strain of completing college applications upon their shoulders. Ready to take it all in, their excitement falls short as these privileges seem to be taken away from them by the junior class of 2021.

The seniors entered this year rightfully prepared to revel in the benefits seniority has to offer, including senior parking spots and priority seating within the student section at home football games.

However after almost two months of experience, some question the truth behind seniority privileges. 

For some, the wounds from receiving an undesirable parking spot have just begun to heal. However, with the junior class encroaching upon the senior section during SJHHS home football games, the tensions are brought forth once more, reopening those past afflictions. 

Most seniors are utterly disappointed in this turn of events, as they have been told (by now graduated seniors) to wait patiently for certain benefits until their senior year. 

To put it simply, seniors feel as though the junior class is being insensitive to their prior restraint by ignoring the need for their own restraint. 

“I think it’s crazy that as a senior I haven’t gotten a seat in the senior section yet. I was always told that that spot was saved for seniors, so I as a junior had always respected that and was  going to wait my turn to live that moment, respecting that as a junior” said Jeffery Tobar, a senior who is passionate about this issue. 

This opinion is widely shared by many of the seniors who have been pushed out of their section during SJHHS home games. 

Not only have juniors received senior parking spaces, and a spot in the senior section of the stadium, but they’ve also been modifying the senior chant that is said during games.

“Juniors have been chanting junior season, when their chant is junior nation…that’s the senior chant (senior season), not theirs and it just comes out sounding ignorant,” said senior Savannah Wilson. “[Juniors] will always have next year but we don’t have that, so if you could let us have the senior section that would be great.” 

The tensions seem to keep intensifying, angering the class of 2020. Hopefully as the year progresses the long awaited seniority benefits will return; and with it, a graduating class full of smiles. Seniors look forward to enjoying the many privileges in front of them, and with fingers crossed, hope they won’t be snatched.