I decided to transfer from AHS to O’Connell this year, mostly because I had a lot of friends who went to O’Connell that loved the school. O’Connell also is a lot more spirited, not very crowded, has really good food, a safer and friendlier atmosphere and is in the top conference for sports in the nation.

Overall, my schedule is very similar to other public schools, but we have a lot less school at O’Connell. Almost every week we have an assembly, an early release, a retreat or a school day off. Instead of having a block schedule, we have every class, every day. I’m currently taking Algebra 2/Trigonomety honors, modern European History honors, English 2(10), Spanish 2, regular Chemistry, Theology 2 and Gym/Health. Theology is a mandatory course, so I don’t have an elective until I can drop gym class. I have about an hour and a half of homework a night, but it varies. Some classes don’t give out homework and some have the homework due every other week.

The biggest difference is probably the dress code. We wear our uniforms every day, including socks and shoes, with a few exceptions of dress down days that we have to pay for. If we don’t wear the correct attire, then we get detention.

If we get our phones taken away during class, we pay $ 20 to get it back, and the cost goes up every time after that. The money that we pay to get our phones back goes to charity. If you chew gum in class, certain teachers will make you pay a dollar to go to charity.

A big disadvantage of going here is the long commute; it’s about 25 minutes from where I live. But we have a lot more perks like all of the days off, better food and we don’t have to stress about what to wear in the morning. For lunch, we get Smoothie King once a week, fresh deli sandwiches and salads and hot meals made by chefs at the school along with good snacks. We have lunch for 45 minutes and the lines are much shorter than AHS’. People take spirit week very seriously and go all out. They also go all out with spirit at sports games, especially basketball. Before every class, at the beginning of the day, and at sports games we pray. We have mass once a month and on Holy Days of Obligation. Confessions are also open every Friday during all lunches.