Changes Since 2019

Over the past four years, there have been many things that have changed at St. X. Some have definitely been good and beneficial, but there are also some old St. X things that many upperclassmen miss.

One of the main areas that has had many changes since 2019 is the cafeteria. The obvious thing that only the current seniors here got to experience is the flickel system.

A flickel is a small piece of wood shaped like a poker chip, and they serve as a form of currency in the cafeteria. If you had the meal plan to buy lunch every day, you could buy a meal, two sides, and a drink. However, if you weren’t as hungry one day and you left out any of those items, you would get a flickel. You could use them to buy anything you wanted in the cafeteria.

Many students had lots of flickels saved up, but when the pandemic hit in 2020 and school became fully online, we never got to use them. When we were finally able to come back to school in person the next year, the cafeteria no longer gave out or accepted flickels.

Another thing that has changed is some of the rules and policies that are enforced here. Some of the new rules that we have are wearing lanyards every day, no running in the parking lot, no headphones in the hallway, no disposable water bottles, and only St.X pullovers can be worn.

These new rules have made the experience and overall environment different than it used to be on a regular school day. Don’t get me wrong, many of the new rules are necessary. However, when the upperclassmen think about now versus our earlier years here, it is not the St. X we remember.

The main thing that has had a massive impact on the students is the changes of the building itself. Some of these new additions of the school are the Borders Commons Area, bigger and more modern library and classrooms, and the soon to be Ryken Engagement Center replacing the old Ryken House where the Brothers used to live on campus.

These new additions are more advanced than what we had before, but there are things that had to be left behind to make room for everything. Things like the glass skywalk over the front office and even the world geography and history classrooms in the old library are things that are easy to forget about when you’re walking through the new areas of the school.

Even though there are things that people miss about the old ways, the good from it all far outweighs the bad. From what is visible, it is easy to say that the overall experience for the students and teachers here continues to get better and better. However, it is also easy to say that the seniors are lucky to have been able to experience the way things used to be at St. X.