This school in almost every sense belongs to us.

There is not a room in Apple Valley High where we cannot learn a new thing. However, we are only allowed to roam beyond where the front doors are until 2:45 pm. Afterwards teacher supervision is required to stay on school grounds, especially for a project or school affiliated club.

“The reason why we have the announcement,” says AVHS Assistant Administrator Paul Tinder, in regard to the 2:45 attendance policy, “is that we’re encouraging students, if they stay after school, to be in supervised areas with a coach, teacher, or activity director.” This period is one of the established times during the day where students migrate throughout the school, and is in a way the last passing time of the day.

“The 2:40 time period is more geared in the world of students because most of our activities and athletic practices start before 2:45… So our assumption is that the people who are going to practice have already made it.”

Our student body leaves nothing to the imagination in diversity: each person, every lingering group that manage to hold up the hallway, are each equipped with a place to look forward to just after the last bell. Whether it be Buckhill as the days become shorter and the nights colder, or the growing pile of late work at the corner of your desk, we all have something waiting for us after school. With the buses long gone and teachers packed up for the day however, it takes seconds until every seat in the library is filled.

You may be able to chat with a friend or two until the certain bell, wondering why several other people get to stay behind while you have to leave. It may not seem it, hearing how much fun they’re having without you, but the answer is simple: they’re working.

In Mr. Voss’s room meet several students forming our school’s Creative Speaking group, a small sect of our renowned speech and debate team. They are often seen hanging out casually working on their individual speeches on Mondays and Fridays.

There are only four people here, split down the middle of boys to girls and each with a laptop in front of them. Laughter erupts as often as stints of focused conversation in a room that seems large with just the four of them. The goal of each individual’s speech is to express a story of one’s own design or experience, with the option of incorporating a moral to the story, like that of student Linnea Prehn. Without divulging too much of Linnea’s presentation, spoiling it for those who have waited dearly to hear it in person, her spoken tale of fantasy and adventure suggests to an audience the importance of self-expression.

A survey taken of what twenty-seven random students were doing in the library after school revealed the following: six were only meeting to work on a group assignment or wait for a ride; seven met that afternoon just to see friends; and it was an even split between the remaining students staying behind for club meets (mainly the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and members of the speech team) and others individually studying. Popular tools available for them were the computer lab and help from other students and staff.

Beyond the 2:45 threshold, the open atmosphere AVHS has maintained over the years has bred productivity, creativity, and inquisitive minds. The school allows us to proceed with our work as we are, as individuals with the power to choose what we do or practice –regardless of whatever is graded in a classroom. What we choose to do, when the rooms are locked up for the night as custodians prepare them for tomorrow, becomes the prelude of what we become in the future.

“I really want to be an author or something that has to do with writing in general,” Linnea explains, “I could go on the way on becoming a translator because I love Japanese. But then in speech I got back into writing when I realized I liked that too… I sorta fell in love with it I guess.”