SAN JOSE, CALIF.⸺There are a handful of things that the administrators of Silver Creek need to implement that improves the overall experience of high school students and staff.

Even as a new student that is a Freshman at Silver Creek, I can say that there are still plenty of problems on the campus that students and staff deal with every day. Silver Creek can improve on other aspects of their campus since other high schools in the East Side Union High School District have become more distinctive in their schools’ condition and style. Having been to some other high schools that are in the same district as our school for sports and other activities, I can see what Silver Creek might need to change.

Rainy weather outside of a window.

Photo Credit : Valentin Muller

To start with some of the problems at Silver Creek, we have the issues with the drains and puddles on rainy days. With the ground structure at Silver Creek, there are dips where water will just form and block a whole path to the point where students and staff have to take another route. For example, a place where this is especially bad is the stairs by the library where the puddles engulf the stairs. This then forces the students to go up the flat ramp in the middle of the stairs, or have to go around them to reach their classes. To improve this issue, the school should consider renovating the school just like other schools have done, like Yerba Buena. For P.E only students that are boys pay money for locks on their lockers while girls don’t have to. In the girls locker room, the locks are built into the lockers which means that making girls buy locks aren’t needed. Making only the boys pay for locks is not only unfair but it just comes off as the school being downright lazy to install locks onto the lockers. They could just give the boys locks without paying and having both boys and girls only pay for P.E clothing.

Bathrooms at Silver Creek lack sanitariness and they don’t feel that safe. I have heard from my friends that they have had to walk out of the restroom as soon as they came in or held in their urge to go to the bathroom because they didn’t feel comfortable. They told me that when they went to use the bathroom there were groups of students that would vape inside. For me, sometimes when I would use the bathroom the toilets would be completely trashed or they were covered with bodily fluids. In the boys locker room, one of the stalls doesn’t even have a lock on them which renders the stall useless. Some of the bathrooms don’t even have mirrors for people to fix their outside appearance.

Kevin Duong, a Freshman at Silver Creek High School, stated what he thinks doesn’t like about Silver Creek. “I think that Silver Creek needs to improve the school by limiting fights and changing their school lunch.” Duong said. Duong also added that the students at Silver Creek are sometimes troublesome.

Even though Silver Creek does have problems at the school, there are still things that have been benefiting such as free lunch. However, these problems at Silver Creek need to be improved to give students a better high school experience.