Decision day is a nationwide day in which seniors wear their college merch to school and receive flags made specifically for their college. Decision day is most commonly held on May 1st, but this year, for The Morgan School, it was held on May 22nd.

The delay was caused by a lack of communication between the administration and the students. When Mrs. Chause retired and the journalism program switched to Mr. Carroll, Carroll wasn’t interested in continuing all of the traditions the journalism program had done in the past. In the past, the journalism class had run the entire event. With a new teacher in charge of the class, there was a severe lack of awareness and who was planning on organizing each part of the event.

Carroll, although aware of the fact that it had been run by the journalism class in the past, had decided if nobody brought it up to him, he was not going to follow through with that tradition. “I was really impartial to it. In fact, I thought I put a lot of effort into something that I didn’t really see the value in it,” Carroll explained.

But the students were unaware of this, and had assumed it was going to be held on May 1st, as it always is. Senior Gabriella Navarra wondered what was going on, since she had not heard anything about the event, so she decided to ask Carroll. “And then, like the day before, a student came to me and asked, kind of assuming that we are running it. But it was like, I had no idea kids even cared about it up until the day before or two days before,” Carroll said.

Navarra had grown to be extremely excited about decision day, as she had been in journalism in past years and seen it play out. When she realized she, and her peers, were not going to experience this, she wondered if there was a way to change it.

“When I was told that we weren’t gonna have it, it definitely made me a little confused on why we weren’t gonna have this because every single year we’ve done this tradition, even since my siblings graduated, which was up to ten years ago,” Navarra said. “It was honestly upsetting because we had worked so hard these past four years and I know it’s not just me that we honestly looked forward to this day to like show off our accomplishments.”

After the word started to spread about decision day possibly not happening, many students felt upset or angry. For example, senior Jason Mansfield, similar to Navarra, had been looking forward to Decision Day. When he learned about the possibility of the event not happening, he became upset. “I was confused as to why it wasn’t happening because it happens every year, and I feel like it’s a time everyone bonds and comes together,” said Mansfield. “It’s like a fun send off for the seniors, and I was upset that we weren’t going to experience that as a grade.”

Once Carroll realized how upset many students were, he decided to speak with the editors in his journalism class about the next steps to this, and how they would complete the task of setting this event up. “We kind of went forward with it, and there’s a ton of effort that went into that,” said Carroll.

After Carroll had decided that the journalism class would complete the task of planning it out, he, alongside his student editors and technology teacher Mr. DiStefano, began to plan out different stations available for seniors and details, such as how the flags would be given to the seniors. Because of the large amount of time they had to complete these tasks, everything was made, and the whole event ran smoothly, everyone receiving a flag and being able to take pictures with their friends. In the past, not every student had received a flag. Instead, there were about three or four flags made for colleges that many people were attending. But this year, every student received a flag.

Carroll had decided that after the event, and seeing the success it had, he would be willing to run it again, given that the editors in his journalism class would be as quick to help as they were this year. “I think as long as kids are willing to put the effort, you know, like Saoirse doing flags, as long as people are willing to put the time into it, I will do it again,” Carroll said.

Overall, the event was extremely successful with four different stations for seniors to take photos at, with not only their friends but who will be attending the same college as them.

“Even Mrs. Hagness said that it was the best decision day yet, and she was grateful that I pushed for this day to happen, whether it gave them a little bit of trouble in the beginning,” said Navarra.

“I saw the smiles on kids’ faces, and I had kind of seen it from a different angle this time. I see the worth of the event a bit more than I did prior. I think I didn’t have a good feel for the student opinion, which is something you just don’t know until you know,” closed Carroll.