Daily Archives: April 19, 2016

School Life

Senior Fail List

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With the final quarter of the year now in session, many seniors are preparing to take their final exams and move on to graduation. However, in the past, there have been incidents where some seniors begin to slack during their final weeks of high school which has caused them to not graduate on time. A common saying that applies in this situation is the “Senior Slide”, and counselors want to make sure that this doesn’t happen to you. It’s a depressing time for the counselors, as they have to compile a list of students who are at risk of failing a class during the fourth quarter, and the last thing they want to do is make a call home to your family telling them that you won’t be graduating with the rest of your class.

There are certain criteria that is used for the Senior Fail List, and just because you have been placed on the list doesn’t mean that you won’t graduate on time, it just means that you are at risk.

The criteria used for the list :

  • Failing English, or have failed an English course in the past. You need to have passed 4 years of English to graduate high school.
  • Failing Social Studies or have failed Social Studies in the past. You need to have passed 4 years of Social Studies to graduate high school.
  • If you have had poor or spotty attendance throughout the year, you may be placed on the Senior Fail List.
  • If you have had a poor track record with turning in assignments on time or wait until the last second to turn assignments in.

The Senior Fail List will be released during the first week of May. Good luck to the class of 2016 during their final months of high school!

Editorials/Student Voice, School Life

Mystery positive notes in the girls school bathroom?

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Today I’m looking into a mystery that’s been going on this past week at Highland Park Senior High.

April 12th, 2016 some mysterious student(s) decide to put sticky notes, with positive messages written on them, up in the girls bathroom. But, they decide, the next day, to take them off. This left people with questions about who this person, or people, is/are and why are they doing this.

Being one of the individuals that was left with questions, I decide to take it into my own hands and try to find out more about this mystery.

It turns out, random students (girls) are the ones putting up the sticky notes. During the school year, they decide to wrote positive Post-it notes to make other girls feel better when they were feeling down. They put them around the school bathrooms to remind them they were not alone. Usually, the people who do this sort of thing don’t take credit for it. It’s like they want it to be a mystery, and students have been doing this for a while now, according to some older students at Highland Park.

I decide to ask a student about what they tought about this. Her name is Olivia Verdeja, a freshman at HPSH.

I asked was, “How did you personally feel when you saw this notes around the bathroom what we’re you’re toughts and reaction?”

She responded with, “I liked it and thought it as cool because in high school a lot of people don’t have self confidence and I think if girls see this it means that other girls feel the same way and aren’t alone.”

My opinion is that people at Highland should start to do this more often, as just one little thing can make a difference in others’ lives; both those who are struggling, and those who aren’t. Also, kids need to know that everyone cares and they’re not the only ones who feel like they do. Working together as a whole school coming together is a great thing.

News

Do teens really know about the politics of today?

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Teens this year are really focused on the politics & the elections this year, but do they really know what they’re talking about? We took the time to go around and ask students who attend Highland Park Senior High what they know about the politics of today.

Since this is the last year that President Obama is going to be in office, Republicans and Democrats are going to try to argue and persuade the American people, and are going to try to explain why the people of America should vote for them.

What is a Republican? According to Google, a Republican is:

  1. a form of government, constitution, etc, belonging to, or characteristic of a republic.
  2. A person advocating or supporting republican government,&  a member or supporter of the Republican Party.

It says here at http://2016.republican-candidates.org/ that the top Republicans left in this Presidential election include:  

  • Donald Trump
  • Ted Cruz
  • John Kasich

There were 6 more Republicans running earliers such as:

  • Marco Rubio
  • Ben Carson
  • Jeb Bush
  • Mike Huckabee
  • Rand Paul
  • Carly Fiorina

Then there are Democrats: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives (according to Google).

The top Democrats left running for President are:

  • Hillary Clinton
  • Bernie Sanders

We asked some fellow high school students about what they know about the politics of today, and these are some of their responses:

Dejra: I know that there are Democrats and Republicans but I know that Trump is all talk, and what he says doesn’t connect with the world’s problems.

Angel: Don’t vote for Donald Trump.

Serene: I know that Trump is a Democrat and that most of the President candidates are Republicans so Trump stands out and he thinks he is the stuff because he a Democratic.

In the end, we realized that most teenagers don’t really know about the politics of today. We found out that most of the kids that talk about the politics mostly focus on the negative remarks based on what they hear. They know the basics of what’s going on and they don’t really know the actual information disputed and what the main problem is. It’s social media that makes one situation look like the next, and then makes each and every candidate look like the bad guy when every candidate has the ability of convincing one another why they would be a good leader for our country.