What makes Weston High School Unique?

Contributed by Sam Weyrauch

Free periods. Everyone has them from time to time throughout their high school careers, but does everyone know what to do with them? Here at Weston, we have a unique opportunity unavailable to students in many other towns. From sophomore year on we have open campus privileges, which allow us to leave the school grounds during our frees and go do other things. As freshmen, we, too, have study halls, and depending on the teacher these can range from just sitting quietly at our desks doing homework to playing games and having fun together as a class. But once we get back to school after that first summer of high school, we are allowed to leave the campus for our frees – just as long as our parents sign a waiver form.But what do people at Weston do when they walk out the doors and leave the building? you may ask. As you may or may not know, Weston does not have very much to offer in terms of stores or restaurants like other towns in the area have. Because of this, our two eateries become very popular in the middle of the day, since they’re about the only places we have time to go to during our half-hour lunch periods. When we have full periods free though, many Weston students go to places in Westport, Wilton, or Norwalk to eat, which is nice because it gives us so many options and because we have the ability to drive there easily. Another advantage of our open campus policy is the opportunity to go home for frees. If you have a free period at any time throughout the day (including first period when you get to sleep in), you can go home for the hour, so you can a) do homework without the distractions of the school library, b) take a nap, or c) just hang out. It really is nice to be able to leave the school, and if you have back-to-back frees it’s possible to even go to places like Compo Beach during the spring.One of the things that our administration assumes regarding our open campus is that we act responsibly while we are out of the school. This right, just like many others, can be taken away if it is abused, so it is in all of our best interests to respect it. I know many other schools in the area have closed campus, or just limited open campus, but in part because of our small size and less urbanized location, we do not have to stay in the school all day. This is just one of the things that make me happy to be a Weston Trojan.