It’s now 2025, and many new changes like lanyards, Care Coins, and lunch periods have been made to improve our school’s environment during the 2024 school year.
Returning Fallon students know our motto used to be the “Fallon Five,” but it has now changed to “Fallon Cares,” This is intended to encourage students to be considerate, responsible, and safe. What are our peers’ opinions on this? Eighth-grader Chloe Yoo says, “I think Fallon Cares impacts the school by helping the school become a safer environment and helping others to be more considerate.”
Seventh grader Aahil Shaikh wanted to discuss the new Care Coin system. “Fallon is wasting too much money just on Care Coins, and people are bragging about having so much,” Aahil says. Many students think Care Coins are a waste of Fallon’s money. About $5,000 has been spent on Care Coins, which makes students think, why not use that money to improve lunches, a common complaint among students? Students are not aware that California spends $600 million on school lunches, just for it to be thrown away.
About $5,000 has been spent on Care Coins, which could have been used to improve the lunches, a common complaint among students.
Seventh-grade vice principal Mrs. Causapin explains why so much money is spent on Care Coins, “Students benefit from care coins because they reinforce positive behavior and the classroom rules. Many students have different opinions on the system, like the eighth graders who don’t want to do it as it’s their last year at Fallon. Seventh graders are in between. Some seventh graders like it, and others don’t, but that’s mostly because they didn’t have the system last year. But the 6th graders on the other hand are fairly new to Fallon, they most likely want the care coins, and they think of it as a friendly competition between other students.”
Additionally, students are required to wear lanyards that hold their school ID. Sixth grader Vedant Ayachit reveals, “The rules about wearing lanyards keep you safe, but a bunch of people started messing around and ripping them off people’s necks.” Many students misuse Fallon’s lanyards by spinning them through the air or pulling them off each other, even though they are for safety purposes, and allow staff to identify students.
Sixth grader Taran Saganihali says, “The lanyards can be annoying, but I understand it’s for safety.”
Lunch is yet another change for this year. Last year, seventh and eighth graders had lunch after the third period, and sixth graders ate after the fourth period. This year, the school has split the seventh graders into sixth and eighth-grade lunches, forming Lunch A and Lunch B. Seventh grader Srishti Nibandhe says, “The fact that they split up the lunches is a bit annoying. The problem is that all your friends might get split up.”
Change at Fallon leads to many different opinions of people around the school. As our population grows to around 1,700 or more, Fallon is changing to create an environment that safely accommodates our Mustangs.
