The stereotypical athletes, smart kids, band members, popular girls and guys, and the outcasts that no one really knows. Cliques have become a real issue in high schools everywhere, but especially Coral Springs Charter. There’s always gonna be cliques in high school, the popular versus the unpopular, and there’s always gonna be people you don’t know.

CSCS is essentially different from most high schools. There are two factors that make Charter different from other high schools and their social groups. 1, we are smaller than most schools and our class sizes have fewer students than other schools. For example, the class of 2024 has 222 students. Most high schools have 400 students or more in their graduating class. 2, Charter has grades 6-12. When they enter high school, these students have already known each other for 3 years for the most part. They don’t have to make first impressions and learn who everyone is because they’ve been going to school with them since sixth grade. Another part of this is that by the time that we are in high school, the cliques are already set and people have already found their social groups. “I do believe Charter has a clique problem, because then nobody feels comfortable enough to get to know each other better and branch out,” said Sophomore Sara Cano. Teenagers are so quick to judge one another and make a decision based on who someone is friends with or hangs out around.

I do believe that Charter has a clique problem and the main problem is we already have our selected friends and group, so we don’t make an effort to try to get to know new people. By the time we graduate, there are people in the seats that we don’t even know. There are people in the halls that you walk by every day, and you still never take time and effort to get to know them as a person or even learn their name. Because Charter has students from grades 6-12, students are very close to a select group of people and will never stray from that group to have new friends. “Since the school is so small and we’ve known each other since 6th grade, the friend groups stayed the same so people don’t really interact with each other as much,” said Junior Alyssa Phillips. The mentality is, if you’ve known a group of students since 6th grade, why do you need to try to meet other people? The answer is it’s always good to meet new people because they need a friend just as much as you do.

There are also people who have drama in middle school which carries them into high school, and they don’t ever drop their problems. People want to hate who their friends hate, even if they don’t have problems with them. Because of this, you may have problems with someone you’ve never even met.

High school is the time we will never forget, it’s the time to meet new people, try new things, and make mistakes. There’s no harm in meeting new people and there’s always a chance that the person you go up to may be someone you really click with. However, that can’t happen if you sit on the other side of the hallway judging people who you don’t know.

The clique problem can be solved so easily by going up to someone you don’t know, or talking to the person next to you in class. They may become your new friend, and if they don’t, then at least you put in an effort. We’ve known each other for almost 7 years and it’s sad that when names are being called at graduation, our reaction will be, “Who’s that?”