Students have received awards recently for going above and beyond. The AP scholar assembly last month was one way of recognizing these types students. Recognition for making it on the honor role was recently released as well. Although Kennedy does give out numerous awards some students at Kennedy do not get recognized for their achievement.
“I think it’s good to recognize students for what they accomplish, but I’m not big on everyone gets a trophy. You have to earn it,” Principal Jason Kline said.
Despite the fact that sometimes students don’t get recognized for what they do, Kennedy tries to make the process of picking out who gets awarded as fair as possible. “Most awards are criteria based. It’s not a matter of decision. They simply have a list of students that qualify,” Kline said.
To help more students get recognized for achievement, Kline and others wants to add some additional awards.
“We’re contemplating some additional awards to recognize efforts that we don’t recognize right now. I thought about for example recognizing students that have done extensive work preparing for careers or through taking job shadows, internships, or doing Kirkwood courses; things like that. So we may be adding some awards in the future,” Kline said.
Not only do awards make you feel accomplished, but they also help with your college resume.
“Once you start applying to colleges and scholarships, having awards to write down will be a big advantage for you,” Sydney Hayden, sr., said.
Juniors and seniors at Kennedy have more award opportunities because they’re upperclassman and can be recognized for doing more.
“Upperclassman have more high school experience than upperclassman and deserve to be recognized,” Riley Hull, fr., said.
Most underclassman are not aware of the different types of awards Kennedy has to offer.
“I don’t even know half the awards that are given out at school,” Hull said.
Overall these awards are meant to benefit the students at Kennedy High school.
“It’s also good to be able to say, hey this is how I stand out from my peers and a big benefit for students is that it helps them focus on the right things for school. I think Dr. W, who devolved a lot of these awards, did a really good job of identifying those things,” Kline said.