Beginning in August, Westminster 8th grade chairs made a decision requiring Homerooms to socialize with students of the opposite gender every Friday during morning homeroom. Homerooms are split and grouped in pairs to spend the 15-minute period together. Homeroom connection was developed to help students interact with a larger variety of people and break apart the familiar clique normality in the middle school. But the homeroom timeframe, along with the already awkward 8th-grade mixed locker commons, has sparked controversy around the 7th to 8th-grade social transitions being awkward and somewhat forced. Here’s what some of our 8th-grade students think.

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"[It's a] Lot of fun, I've made a couple friends in my homeroom and now I'm able to talk with them.” Q: But have you spoken with people from the opposite gender homeroom? "No, only with the people in my homeroom.” -Neil Mepani, Class of '28