(June 10, 2011) — Entering through the black gates on the first day of school, wearing a polo and Dickies, senior Lyova Zalyan – now ASB President – at the time felt out of place and shy. It was freshman year in 2008 and the start of a rigorous four years of high school for Zalyan, along with his classmates. But the problem, according to Zalyan, was that most freshmen, just as they had all other years, didn’t know what Clark Magnet had to offer and for that reason weren’t capable of experiencing all the benefits. “Once I joined ASB I thought to myself that there should be a program to help freshmen get out of their comfort zones and really experience all that the high school has to offer,” Zalyan said. And from this came the breakthrough of the Principal Advisory Council, better known as PAC. Now the class of 2011 gets the privilege of saying that they were responsible for the start of a program that has changed Clark as well as students’ lives forever. The objectives of PAC are to teach freshmen and team leaders (made up of both seniors and juniors) the ideas of teamwork, expression, the importance of academics, and motivation. As a freshman, Zalyan didn’t just feel like he wasn’t familiar enough with the school, but he also felt like he didn’t have a voice. Therefore, he found it important to “improve communication,” especially between freshmen and seniors, since some freshmen are scared of seniors. For freshman Nareh Mirbakian it’s been a very intriguing experience. “PAC made every freshman become closer and now the way I see it, everyone is comfortable with each other,” Mirbakian said. Besides bringing everyone closer and allowing the freshmen to realize how in common they are with one another as well as with their leaders, Mirbakian has also found the PAC program to be fun and hopes it will be as successful in the years to come. It’s not all about the freshmen, though, since seniors and juniors take away from this experience as well. “As leaders they are more like big brothers and sisters,” Zalyan says, so they really learn about the concept of working and talking with others whom they originally don’t know and probably wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for PAC.