- January 15, 2025
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What defines the next generation?
Two of Flagler Palm Coast High School’s best and brightest — Hailey Bovino and John Williford — recently met with the Palm Coast Observer to discuss racism, social media, time management and the ultra competitive atmosphere of high school achievement.
Bovino and Williford were recently chosen by American Legion Post 115 to attend Girls State and Boys State, in June. Bovino has a 4.3 weighted GPA, and Williford’s is 4.4. Bovino is the junior class vice president, treasurer of the Key Club, is a star on the girls soccer team and works 10-15 hours at Mezzaluna Pizzeria each week. Williford is working through the i3 Academy’s veterinarian assistant program; he's also part of the Robotics Club and vice president of 4H; he raises a goat and a pig and is a leader at Forever Flagler, which organizes weekly beach cleanups.
But they have no regrets about their busy schedules. Here’s why.
Bovino: No, because I know I’m going to learn and grow from all of it. The pressure and the work load are making me better.
Williford: I definitely have questioned it, especially when I’m really tired. I’ll think, “If I just got home at 2 p.m. instead of 8, I could be done with all of this.” But in the end, I enjoy those clubs, and what’s why I do it. It also helps me with building leadership skills and furthering my knowledge.
Williford: An hour for personal use, but whenever I’m on it, it’s usually looking at other robotics teams and ideas for our Forever Flagler projects.
Bovino: I spend a decent amount on the Class of 2022 Twitter, because I run that one, and I also use my personal account. I spend about 30 minutes a day stalking other college women’s soccer programs and watching all the videos. I’ll use the other 30 minutes just for whatever.
Bovino: Because you can find anything you’re interested in. I know a bunch of kids who go home and watch airplane videos and drone videos. You can find whatever you want on any topic. I rarely ever see what people call cyberbullying. Most people use it for good, or they hype the person up or make the person feel good on their post.
Bovino: A lot of kids make threats and don’t realize the repercussions of it. But I think we have implemented a lot of safety procedures. A shooting is always a possibility, but I don’t feel afraid to come to school.
Williford: The only way you’re going to stop it is to treat a threat seriously. Kids have to know it’s serious to create fear in children.
Williford: When I wake up, I’m usually reading a whole bunch of emails, and I’m thinking about whether I have everything done from the last night. I usually don’t get back home from school till about 6 o’clock, after robotics competitions and working with goats.
I also don’t spend my class periods working on other things. I see a lot of people doing that, because they’ll be behind in one class and do that work in another class, but you might miss something important in that class. What I do is make a reminder for later, so I can fully focus on what I missed then, and that way I’m not missing anything in class.
Bovino: I’ll stay up till 2 in the morning. I will not go to sleep until I know I have everything done. I also prepare myself to be able to take hits. Since I have a busy schedule, I know I have to prioritize the most important things. If I stay up till 2 and I just can’t get it done, or I’m missing something that I need to get it done, I’ll make sure I prepare myself enough to recover from it.
Williford: There are sometimes projects for i3 that I’ll have more agency with, and I’ll have to stay up longer because I just want the final product to look better, like editing videos.
Bovino: I think it is definitely less racist. In the protests for Black Lives Matter, there were people of all races coming together, and I believe everyone is more open and loving. People of older generations — you can see that they’re stuck in their ways, but you don’t get that experience when you talk to younger kids.
Williford: If you’re willing to work hard, nobody really cars what the color of your skin is.
Williford: I don’t like to, because it takes up too much of my time, but when I do it’s usually over the Constitution.
Bovino: We argue about if something is ethical or not ethical. We come up with very good points, so it’s not aggressive — more of a conversation.
Bovino: Obviously, I would get rid of COVID. I would implement more school spirit — things I feel like we’re lacking. I wore a green wig to the Green Out Game, and we were the only ones wearing green. In past years, everyone was wearing green. If I were queen, I would promote more school spirit.
Williford: I’d increase student-driven learning. That’s what i3 really is. It’s a lot harder to teach student-driven classes, because teachers have to let go of that control, but I think it helps build soft skills, which is really important. If you can’t collaborate, people won’t want to hire you.
I think student-driven learning allows students to guid their own education, that’s why I enjoy i3 so much. We still have to go by the standards and do the same tests as everyone, but it allows us pick our own projects on things that we enjoy. There’s not so much pulling everyone’s ears to get projects done.
Bovino: I would also probably implement clubs or classes that will prepare you for college and the real world: about the economy, how to buy a house. We go into college after this, and I don’t even know how to pay for insurance. We’re so unprepared in real-world applications because we’re learning about geometry and shapes that we’re not going to use.
Williford: I think that’s one of the benefits of student learning. Since we’re so small at i3, we talked to our facilitators and came up with an “adulting” class.
Bovino: I think if a teacher motivates a kid, the student might say, “I like this feeling.” It could lead to a snowball effect to get involved in other things. It could be the push they need.
Williford: Some kids don’t get that outreach from parents or guardians, so if there’s some person who’s being respectful and doing thing in the student’s best interest, I think a student would be motivated.
