In the past few weeks, some Gilroy High students have been leaving their trash on campus, which attracts seagulls. Students covering their heads as seagulls fly over has become a common occurrence at both brunch and lunch. I do not agree with the administration taking away our brunch. This action is an example of the entire student body being punished for the actions of individuals.

The administration has generalized the student body as "everyone" leaving their trash out, when in fact it is only specific groups of people that are failing to properly dispose of their trash at the end of our breaks. Last year, the administration seemed to have a better method of dealing with this situation. Last year, when groups of students repeatedly left trash out, they got their tables taken away until they learned to keep their area clean.

This happened to my group of friends towards the end of the year. After continually leaving garbage at our table, we got our table taken away. We were told that our table would be returned to us when we stopped littering. We then made an effort to throw away all of the trash left in our area, whether or not it was ours, and sure enough, by the end of the week, our table was returned to us, and we kept our area clean for the rest of the school year. This seems to have been a more effective system at targeting the individuals who were a part of the problem.

While I don't agree with the administration taking away our brunch, I also do not think it should have come to that. The problem should not have gotten to the point to where the administration felt they had no other way to get their message through than to cancel our brunch. I highly doubt that anyone actually likes having seagulls drop "gifts" on their head, yet we are contributing to the situation by leaving out trash that attracts the seagulls.

I don't get it. It is honestly not that hard to make sure that your garbage goes in the trash when you are done eating. We are supposed to be the generation that is going to save the planet, not add to its problems. Believe me, there are plenty of trash cans at our school, even if you have to walk 20 feet to get to one. My question to the Gilroy High students is: Where is our pride? I've seen everyone go all out during spirit week, so I know we are proud to rep the blue and gold. We're proud to be a part of a school that succeeds in many aspects, especially in the prowess of our athletic department. Why does that pride not extend to the appearance of our school?

I spend the majority of my day at school, from around 7:45 in the morning to about 5:30 p.m. Many students spend similar amounts of time at school every day, if not more. I'm issuing a challenge to us, the student body of Gilroy High. Let's take some of that Mustang Pride we have and apply it to the place where we spend the majority of our day. Let's not only clean up our campus, but also keep it clean. Let's show the administration that we are capable of doing something as seemingly simple as cleaning up after ourselves.

I don't know about you, but personally, I like having a brunch and getting a break between classes to chat with friends, and I'm not looking forward to having brunch taken away in the future when it can be easily avoided.

Deena Morsilli is a senior at Gilroy High. Her column is published every other week on Thursday.

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