It’s a new year and Medea Creek Middle School has a new seventh grade elective. Health class is now mandatory for seventh-grade students, and there is a lot to talk about. The elective is taken for one semester throughout the school year, except for students who have a yearlong, musical elective such as choir, strings and band. These students will only take health classes once a week. 

In this elective, students will learn about social media, advertising, nutrition, communication skills, drugs, comprehensive sexual health education, relationships and many more useful topics. It will be taught by science teacher Maureen O’Hagan.

“Health is a semester-long class where you get to learn really cool important life skills that you can actually use for the rest of your life,” O’Hagan said. 

There are many different opinions on this elective as well as many different points of view. After all, MCMS is made up of all different people who all have different ways of thinking. 

Seventh-grade student Jasmine Heidarian, who is taking choir as a yearlong elective, said, “Health is just kind of boring, and it’s mostly stuff I already know. It’s just don’t do drugs, don’t smoke, don’t eat unhealthy food.” 

Other students, like seventh grader Ashwil Machado, see the emerging positives of the elective. 

“I kind of like [health class],” Machado, who is taking the class for an entire semester, said. 

The new health elective is a recent addition to campus. With around half of the seventh graders taking it this semester, and the other half taking it the next, there is a lot for students to learn this year. 

“No offense to all the other subjects, learning science and math and history are great but, you’re memorizing a lot of things you’re never going to use again,” O’Hagan said. “I think [health is] the most important class on campus.”