HILARY HOSIA
Xavier High School is expecting 50 students to join its 81-student roster for the second semester beginning this Thursday. Some of these students are returning students while a larger portion are new students, including a few from Marshall Islands.
Tuesday morning, three students from Majuro and three from Ebeye boarded the United Airlines flight to Chuuk to meet up with Marshallese students already there.
The total number of Marshallese students at Xavier High School this year is 11, according to Principal Martin Carl.
While its student roster is back to its normal 131 population, Xavier rarely had a population over 200 due to its strictness and standards. The number 131 is considered normal attendance, given each class is broken into two sections, an ideal number of 15 or 16 student per class.
One of the largest classes to attend Xavier High School was the class of 2006, which started with 51 students — the same class that inspired the famed 50 plus 1 song that went viral in 2007. The song is about a Marshallese student from Ebeye who committed suicide and could not return for his sophomore year, hence the title: 50 plus 1.