Lately, things have been a little chaotic. With COVID-19 going on, schools can’t function normally. Deer Park High School is part of a small percent of schools doing in person learning during 2020-2021. However, this doesn’t bode well for the freshmen who are ascending from middle school. Luckily, Deer Park has Link Crew. Link Crew is a group of leadership students who have put a lot of time and energy into making the school more welcoming for the incoming students. So far, the leaders have accomplished many things. 

This year Link Crew put together a Zoom meeting for most of the freshmen who will be physically attending school this year. The meeting included a fun and friendly welcome from their Link Crew leaders, as well as a virtual tour of the school. They assembled a few activities to further introduce themselves to the freshmen and to make them feel more welcome. Every few weeks Link Crew hosts a freshmen lunch, where they will get into small groups on certain days and go to a specified class with their leaders. There they enjoy fun activities as well as talk about how school is going. Several of the freshmen quite enjoy these meals.

Towards the beginning of the school year, all of the Link Crew leaders went outside for 2-3 days drawing delightful messages along the sidewalks of the school. They hoped these kind, inspirational messages would help make the newcomers feel welcome. After the first day, it rained so the messages were wiped clean. So they went out and made more. The leaders enjoyed creating these playful and inspiring messages. Something I do as a Link Crew teacher’s assistant (TA), is every month I send out birthday cards with candy to the freshmen. I don’t know what their thoughts are on this, but I do know that everyone enjoys candy. 

Currently the leadership class is working on projects to help better the school. Each student paired up with someone else and discussed ways they could improve the school for the freshmen who are just arriving. The leaders are hard at work trying to prepare these projects, and the students are enjoying the challenge and the feeling of helping their school.  

Returning Link Crew members: 
Nacona Brown, Ben Helm, Denette March, Caden Martz, Tyler Bates, Chaz Bird, Kyndall Ray, Harriet Riebold, Kyndra Rodriguez, Isabella Sedano, Amelia Smith, Diego Vasquez

New Link Crew members:
Hayley Achurra, Katey Arleth, Tori Arleth, Madison Bates, Madison Beardslee, Kaidence Champagne, Malachi Collazo, Daden Cox, Ruby Envolsen, Allison Feist, Kali Helm, Brandon Gomez-Catalan, Kyler Kanzler, Carmen Kiewart, Lauryn Kunkel, Dylan Lockhart, Marissa Longo, Alayna Marshall, Brooklyn Miller, Madison Moon, Xandria Moss, Isabella Rowley, Ronald Schwencer, Jesslyne Sproule, Ilee Stone, Savannah Story, Lydia Woods, Carter Vandendriessche, Isabella Strugarevic