2,023, That’s the Population number of students in Alton High School (AHS) and when just a few of them, plus staff members, were asked about “biases” in AHS their answers and explanations all varied but all sounded very similar in different ways.

As a sophomore student, the main thing I heard throughout conversations around the school and online always had something to do about whether or not our school was biased or showed favoritism in any way. There was mostly confusion but confidence in the words that were being said, but does anybody really know the reasons behind this? 

When interviewing many students and staff members, asking them for their opinions on this controversial subject, many answers were profind to a yes or no, but when going on to explain it, their answers turned more into a maybe.

“In like the week I’ve been here, not really, I feel I see everyone getting treated pretty much the same.” – A new AHS junior student

“Yes, because they allow certain students to do things and some students can’t do the same things that other students are doing.” – A  AHS junior 

“Well I don’t think so, I think Alton High tries to provide open doors for any student that wants to participate and be included in activities and things like that by offering the various classes and extra activities that are available.” – A AHS Business Law teacher

“I think they try not to be biased, they try to be aware of it, and try to be inclusive. I think it’s hard for everyone to be one-hundred percent of the time perfect without being biased, we all have natural ingrained biases, we have to fight against those biases that are ingrained in us to try to be inclusive.” – A German teacher

“No I don’t.” – A AHS freshman

“No.” – another AHS freshman

“Yeah, well I feel like some teachers like advantages in the dress code, like girls that are curvy and girls that are flat can like where whatever but girls that like are curvy get dress coded for stuff that other girls wear.” An AHS  sophomore student.

“No, no, I feel like they’re all equal.” An AHS Senior

“Not that I have seen, I’m sure there is to a degree but none that I have seen first hand.” AHS’s head band director

“Nah, I don’t think it’s Bias at all, well because I feel like everybody got the same rights, like we get the same amount of things you feel me, the dress code and everything like that.” A  AHS sophomore football player

“They are extremely biased, that’s why nothing ever works out in this school. Like ok prom, that was really janky. I mean I didn’t go to it but there is a reason why I didn’t go to it. It was even weirder when a junior won Prom, which Prom is mostly for seniors right. And not only that, not a lot of people voted for her, but I heard that the voting was jinxed or something like that.” – A very detailed AHS junior

As you can see, a lot of my interviewers’ answers and arguments varied but in all, 8 out of 11 interviewees said they didn’t agree that AHS is biased or shows any signs of being biased.

Looking good for our school right? Well that’s how it seems until we get on the subject with our school’s sports. Although many of my interviewees agreed that our school (AHS) was biased and had favoritism towards certain sports, the ones that did not also had arguments to back up their claim that just might make you think about your claim on this matter.

“They definitely pick their favorite sports. I was told that golf had a higher budget than tennis, despite golf not having a lot of people in there and tennis having a lot of people in there. It definitely feels like they favor a lot of people or favor certain sports and give them a pedestal when nobody needs it. It’s pretty much the sports and clubs that they need to support in general”. – The very detailed AHS Junior

“Well that’s kind of a gray area because I feel like some sports require more equipment and other things that require more than other sports do. Speaking around the band side, I know our district is very supportive of us so I’m not sure what’s being spent on sports like football and basketball vs sports soccer, cross-country, tennis, golf, etc. I also know there’s a lot of personal responsibility with getting your own stuff with golf with golf clubs or tennis with buying your own tennis racket vs people with pads and helmets and all that sort of gear”. – AHS Head Band Director

“So like, I mean, they hype up the football team more than any other sport at Alton High School. That’s what I kind of think because nobody likes the only people you know, the only sports people go to is either basketball or football, not like volleyball or tennis, they don’t go to that they just go to the popular games”. -An AHS senior student

“I feel like they do favor teams at AHS, like football, basketball and probably volleyball. Compared to other sports like tennis or other clubs like chess clubs and stuff like that.”

“There are booster organizations where the parents help support some of those, so they can get extra funding because of that. Um, but I also think it’s natural that football and stuff are community events that draw in a lot of the parents so then there’s a lot of attention paid to them. Just because parents are coming to be involved and community members are getting involved ,then there would be an increase in money just because of their involvement in those things, whereas classrooms it’s only the state funding, it’s not additional parent funding for community support that comes to that on a regular basis.” – An AHS German Teacher

And the majority of the people I interviewed had very similar answers.

Is it just sports that could be our main problem when it comes to being biased? Well I emailed AHS head principal Mike Bellm with the same questions I gave my interviewers and his responses were more than helpful when it comes to settling down confusion on this subject. 

“We strive to create awareness and address any biases reflected in policy or practices. We want to treat each team, group, or individual with the respect and professionalism they deserve.”

“Basketball and football do garner their share of the headlines. I don’t think it’s that AHS promotes this, it’s just that like other schools they receive more attention from news articles and have a large amount of people attend their games. We try to promote all programs. Last week our morning announcements highlighted some of our tremendous photography students that won awards and our talented music students that were named to the prestigious St. Louis Youth Orchestra.”

“Our goal is to treat all students fairly and be consistent when enforcing any policies or rules. We train and talk about being aware of our own implicit biases in an effort to make sure every student is treated fairly and consistently at AHS”.

• Mr. Bellm

With this being said, what do you think? What’s something you think we can do better to minimize being biased at AHS, or minimize the confusion on the subject of bias in AHS? Don’t be afraid to go to your head administrator to answer your questions and claims so we can all become better together redbirds.