01: An ordinary student and a not-so-ordinary high school

He is an ordinary looking 16 year old high school boy with a height of 157 centimeters. His black hair is parted on the left side of his face, with it not being a clean cut made him look kinda rugged. His face is the nearest thing that can be said as “noticeable” in his look, he looked like a certain protagonist in an anime called M* He** Aca***ia but without the freckles and green colors. In totality, he is still an ordinary looking high school boy.

His name is Francis Pirata.

He lives in a certain town in Rizal where a peculiar high school is located. The said high school has a noticeably large campus area and could be compared to a small village. But the most noticeable thing is its abandoned atmosphere because of its lack of students and teachers attending the said high school. That said, there are still students in need of learning and teachers that need to do their job, but for a large campus such as that high school it cannot be helped to think that it is an abandoned place from an outsider’s perspective.

The high school campus was composed of nearly 12 buildings that slightly varied in sizes, a covered gymnasium, and a wide open area where a large tree is located. 4 of the said buildings are large infrastructures that have 3 floors, 3 of them have 2 floors, and the rest are 1 storey buildings. All of those infrastructures including the gymnasium are old and look like they did not get maintenance for the last few years. The wide open area that was located in the middle of the campus might be the only redeemable aesthetic as it did a good job showing how large the said campus is.

As it is a high school campus, the class levels are composed of 7th Grade students to 12th Grade students. Supposedly, there are 10 class sections per class level totaling 60 classes in the whole campus. Supposedly, the 8th and 10th grade classes are scheduled for the morning while the 7th and 9th grade classes are for the afternoon schedule. Supposedly, the 11th and 12th students being the senior years have a whole day schedule of class. Supposedly, there should be an average of 40 students per class totaling a population of 2,400 students attending the said high school.

And supposedly, the high school campus was a place where many students were happily attending and learning from the teachers that were dedicated to their job.

Those things that are now “supposedly” was the norm of that school a few years ago. Nowadays, there are no 7th grade students attending because no one enrolled at that school this year.

There is only one class section both in 8th and 9th grade, and there are less than 20 students attending the class.

There are no 11th and 12th grade students because everyone transferred into different schools after 10th grade.

The current 10th grade students have 2 sections, one is full of delinquent students while the other is the only class and section that has a name of itself.

There are no more than 10 teachers at this high school, most of them are teaching more than one subject due to their lacking numbers. Aside from the teachers, there is also a school principal that maintains the authority of the school as its head.

As said before, the high school campus was almost an abandoned place due to its lacking numbers of students and teachers. For another year or two, this place might get totally abandoned and demolished.
But it does not mean that one should give up to let things go in that way.
There are few students that were hoping that something would change for the better.

Or maybe a class section full of them.