Hello, my name is Loree F., and I am a sophomore at Aztec High School. This is my second year in Evolvement, and soon I will also be a volunteer firefighter here in San Juan county. It’s my passion to keep people healthy and safe, and that’s why I felt the need to address the presence of tobacco in our school so that others know that school is only a place of learning. My hope is that, if we can keep tobacco out of schools, maybe students will continue to stay tobacco-free into adulthood. It’s important to take the health of the students, teachers as well as visitors seriously, so we can all live long, healthy lives!  

Shayliin R. is a senior here at Aztec High, and we were actually introduced to Evolvement at the same time when we both joined two years ago. The reason I chose to partner up with her to talk to our principal, Dr. Hall, about 24/7 is because she is a close friend of mine, she is good at public speaking and she’s also a really hard worker. We set up a time to get together to talk about what we wanted to say in our meeting and how we would dress. We decided to wear our Evolvement t-shirts with our hair done up! We worked hard to prepare for this meeting and spent quite some time going over points we wanted to make. We had so much fun while listening to music and snacking on sweet treats. Prepping for a principal meeting definitely can be a good time if you have a friend like mine to do it with!

Shayliin set up our principal meeting, and Dr. Hall said he was stoked to meet with us. That was a relief, knowing that he was excited to talk to us. So when the day came, we took a deep breath and started our meeting. We were both very nervous, but then we thought to ourselves that the worst case would be that he may not sign the Principal Pledge Card. But we were proud that at least we would get our word across about keeping schools 100% tobacco-free, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

In the end, our principal Dr. Hall was very nice and very willing to talk to us! He listened to everything we had to say and even signed the pledge card! He was very happy to have us come in and speak to him, and he said that he would continue to do everything in his power to make our school tobacco-free 24/7!

Since our meeting, I have seen many signs in my school’s hallways and restrooms that say things such as “let’s keep our schools tobacco-free once and for all”, as well as phone numbers for those who need help quitting. It meant a lot to me that Dr. Hall listened to us, and it makes me so happy to see the signs! After my experience, I highly recommend having a principal meeting at your school. I believe it could really help and impact others to live a tobacco-free life.

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