As the sweet smell of ice cream and toppings enveloped the cafeteria, students came pouring in to receive their award for excelling in their classes. The Ice Cream Social has been a tradition at AHS for over 15 years. When a student receives the award of Student of the Quarter they are invited to come to the cafeteria after school and enjoy ice cream provided by the school. Students are chosen to receive the award for numerous reasons.

“[I earned the award] because I constantly showed good effort and preformed well,” sophomore Olivia Buckley said.

This quarter the majority of teachers gave the award to the student in their class with the highest GPA. However sophomore Jenny Ha attributes her success to her ability to “always make the teacher laugh. I promote good morale during class”.

Different teachers go about assigning the award in different ways. Some teachers simply tell the student after class while others announce the news to the class.

Some students even get the award in two classes.

“I have two awards, one in IB Anthropology and IB Physics,” senior Jenna Balicki said.

This is a great achievement but Balicki wishes that her awards had been spread out between two quarters because “there is no point in getting two awards in one quarter because, although the recognition is nice, there is no double award.”

“The Social is wonderful, it’s a tasty after school treat,” sophomore Brody El-Achi said.

On the other hand, not everyone knew about the Social until students started talking about it when the quarter ended.

“I didn’t know there was an award for being Student of the Quarter until a couple days before I received the award,” freshman Josh Keller said.

The Social isn’t all fun and games for everyone. The teachers at the door must check to make sure everyone was actually a recipient of the award. Math teacher Teresa Lusby was one of those teachers.

“Students are always trying to slip in with other kids passes. We catch a few but some get by,” Lusby said.

Overall, the Ice Cream Social is a great way to reward students for their hard work. It gives them a chance to relax with their friends after a long quarter and is a great incentive for students to work hard and do their best.