Category Archives: News

Local, News

St. Paul Youth Services

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On Wednesday February 10, St. Paul Youth Services (SPYS) hosted an event at the Sun Ray library for finding the next St. Paul Police chief. Mayor Chris Coleman and City Council member Russ Stark attended. SPYS wanted to hear youth voices on how the police affect our community.

We talked about how police officers influence our everyday lives. You can find a police officer in most SPPS high schools. At Highland Park Senior High School we have Officer Hull. In a country that has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, does our discipline on teens have to be linked to police officers?

The school to prison pipeline has been a growing topic in the media. The school to prison pipeline is a term that refers to pushing at risk schoolchildren, who are predominantly people of color, into the criminal justice system. There have been studies that have shown the link between students that are suspended to their committing future law violations.

What is most disappointing is how small the ethnic population is in Minnesota schools, compared to their suspension and high school drop out rates. For example, nearly 60% of suspensions in Minnesota were from black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic students, but they only make up a quarter of the population of the schools. 

SPYS is trying to help us learn that the school to prison pipeline is a real and urgent issue. We should be using our law enforcement to help and protect youth instead of making it difficult to get an education.

St Paul Youth Services was founded in 1973, and provides many services, including the Pre-Court Diversion Program, which helps young adults that committed petty theft offenses like shoplifting and curfew violation have other alternatives to help them stay out of the criminal justice system. Another service they provide to young adults is the Ambassadors for Youth program, which provides counseling and tutoring in community centers.

Local, News

Joe Biden visits Twin Cities

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Over the past week, you may have noticed some spontaneous road closures and a large motorcade and helicopters whizzing through the air constantly. This is because Vice-President Joe Biden made a stop in St. Paul, the final of 3 city visits throughout the country.

The Vice-President’s main stop, while visiting St. Paul, was at the Union Depot, which received over $35 million in economic stimulus money for its renovation in 2009. That money came from the Economic Recovery Act, a federal program that invested in infrastructure and renewable energy sources, and its primary objective was to save and create jobs immediately. Other financial areas of concern that were addressed in this plan were health care, education, and expansion of unemployment benefits.

Biden’s goal during this brief tour was to remind people what the economic climate was like back in 2009, and why he says the economic stimulus package was a great benefit for the country and its people. He stated how projects like the Union Depot renovation helped spark many other jobs of the same sort, which in turn helped in pulling our country out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Mayor Chris Coleman also chimed in about the benefits of the stimulus:  “When you look at the success of downtown St. Paul, and you look at that partnership that we’ve had both on the state level and the national level, that much of the growth that we’re seeing in downtown is directly attributable to that support.”

News

Flint water crisis in Michigan

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There has been an uprising from Flint residents about the water that is contaminated. This is a problem that started all the way back in March of 2013 when the Flint City Council agreed to stop buying Detroit water and start a new pipeline with the Karegnondi Water Authority Project. This pipeline would bring Flint water directly from the Flint River. This would save them approximately 18 million dollars over several years.

In April 2013 the pipeline was officially changed. High levels of lead have plagued Flint’s municipal water supply for at least a year, prompting extensive emergency measures to keep residents safe.

The Flint Residents started to notice the water tasted weird and looked unfamiliar, and started to complain that the water did not seem suitable to consume. Studies showed that the lead piping being used, elevated lead levels 10 times higher than they had previously measured.

The governor’s office has said that they have “requested funding to switch the source back to the Great Lakes Water Authority,” in order to combat the lead leaching. They have also “appointed an independent task force to identify possible missteps and areas for improvement.”

It is going to take much more then changing the water source back to the Detroit water source to fix Flint’s problems though. The pipes are very damaged and need to be replaced, but the cost of replacing the pipes city wide could total 1.5 billion dollars.

Flint residents are very concerned for their children, and not having clean water. Residents are very outraged about the fact that they are basically paying for poisoned water, and the health of their children because of their consumption of lead laced water. The effects of drinking lead water is irreversible,and it is easier for children to be affected by the lead.

This whole incident has been a big catastrophe for the town of Flint, making the city go into an emergency state of crisis.

Former Flint resident, Michael Moore’s website: http://michaelmoore.com/10FactsOnFlint/ has a lot to say about the crisis. There is much more then lead in Flint’s water. The number of cases in Flint of Legionnaires Disease has increased tenfold since the switch to the river water. Doctors are finding that a half-dozen other toxins are being found in the blood of Flint residents. This is very frighting to the doctors as there might be other health catastrophes that may soon come to light.

These side effects affect much more then just peoples’ health. The residents of Flint can’t sell their homes because under the current conditions nobody would buy a house in Flint. This also does not take into account the damage to pipes in their homes. Home owners in Flint are now stuck with homes that are not worth anything. That’s a total home value of $2.4 billion down the economic drain.

Editorials/Student Voice, Local, School Life

SPPS school weather

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On Tuesday, February 2 Saint Paul Public Schools did not cancel school.  There is no specific policy in place about closing schools due to snow as there is for cold weather days.

The district specifically states that if the temperature is projected to be -35 degrees, with windchill, school will be cancelled. This is very specific. The district snow policy states that if school buses cannot get through the streets, and it is extremely dangerous for the bus drivers to get to work, then school will be cancelled. This policy is more vague and can be left open to interpretation.

On the 2nd, there was at least 12 inches of snow that had fallen.

The Saint Paul Pubic School district has come close to canceling school this year, but has not yet done so. There was one day, specifically, that was -30 degree windchill, but the district decided that it was not cold enough and that kids needed to go to school.

I feel that it is crazy that it has to be a -35 degree windchill for school to be closed. I think that -20 or -25 is a more appropriate temperature.

When the district does not close school, and it is super cold, kids don’t want to come to school. Class sizes are impacted, and teachers then have to change their plans because half of their students don’t come to school. This ends up affecting overall student learning because there ends up being just a wasted day.

Editorials/Student Voice, News

Wage rage

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Have you ever noticed how much professional athletes get paid compared to the average American doing manual labor? The highest paid American athlete in 2015 earned around $300 million dollars in 2015, meanwhile the minimum wage is $7.25. Minimum wage jobs like fast food cooks, cashiers and dishwashers are daily, hard working, manual labor jobs and the benefits usually aren’t great. Professional athletes like boxers, basketball players and football players do their job occasionally and get paid millions of dollars and the benefits are endless. 

I believe that this is quite a big problem. Workers who do hours of labor get paid very little and have to support themselves, and maybe even a family while earning just over $15,000 dollars annually. This seems quite unfair compared to athletes who have weekly games where they do their job and get paid millions for very little labor.

Now, I do understand that you have to be in excellent shape to be a professional athlete, and there are some risks while playing these sports, but it doesn’t seem fair that they are being paid millions of dollars when many manual labor jobs also include those risks. For example in order to be a quick and efficient waiter/waitress you do have to be in shape as well.

These jobs do require different skills and different types of hard work but the difference in the amount they get paid is far too large. Now, of course I do not think minimum wage jobs should earn millions of dollars but neither should professional athletes.

News, School Life

Kissing Valentine’s Day goodbye

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On January 29th, the StarTribune reported that Scott Masini, principle of Bruce Vento Elementary School, decided that the school would no longer celebrate “dominant holidays”. Of these holidays are Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.

In late January, principle Scott Masini sent a letter to the students’ parents saying that the school would no longer be celebrating dominant holidays. “I have come to the difficult decision”, Mansini stated in the letter, “to discontinue the celebration of dominant holidays until we can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else’s view”. Mansini’s student body is largely non white, filling the school with a majority minority population. Mansini explained in the letter that he wants to “honor and engage in holidays that are inclusive of the student population”. These dominant holidays will now be just another day at Bruce Vento Elementary School.

Most of the holidays listed make sense to most people. Halloween could be seen as satanic to some religions, Thanksgiving suppresses Native Americans, and Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.

But Valentine’s Day?

Valentine’s Day, although often portrayed as a day of love and commercialism, has Christian roots. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia there were at least three Saints by the name of Valentine, all of whom were martyred on February the 14th. The most well known of the three was Saint Valentine of Rome. Saint Valentine of Rome was a priest who lived during the ruling of Roman Emperor Claudius II. During his ruling Valentine reeling against the rules of the emperor helped arrange marriage for soldiers. Valentine also healed sick children and through his journey converted people to Catholicism. When Claudius found out he was outraged and Valentine was sent to death.  While Valentine was awaiting his death in prison, Valentine received cards and letters from many Roman children. Knowing the common roots of Valentine’s Day, it’s plain to see how the story of the Christian Saint Valentine could suppress other religions if the day were celebrated.

Although Scott Mansini is trying to enhance the celebration of holidays for minorities that fill his school, what about the children in his school who do celebrate dominant holidays?

It’s very likely for a student to be a minority and celebrate at least one of the canceled holidays.

So, what if Saint Paul Public elementary schools didn’t necessarily celebrate all holidays, including dominant ones, but rather educated the students on the holidays? This way the beliefs of every culture are outwardly acknowledged, but not celebrated in a way that would suppress other cultural groups. Students could learn the history of everything from Hmong New Year to Cinco de Mayo to Chanukah to Ramadan to Valentine’s Days. By acknowledging all holidays, all students are honored. Educating students on all cultural celebrations from a young age would build cultural respect and understanding, which you can never have too much of.

Bruce Vento Elementary School should at least recognize and honor the fact that Valentine’s Day, along with all other holidays, are very likely celebrated holidays among their student body.

News

Iowa Caucus

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With the next presidential election just 8 months away, polls and primaries have begun to spur hot debate around the country about who will be leading us come next year. On February 1st, the first of many polls to come took place during the Iowa Caucus. During the Caucus, representatives from the Democratic party spoke about their campaign and had a delegate vote based on which candidates had the most support.

The Democratic candidates that received the most delegate votes were Hillary Clinton with 23, Bernie Sanders with 21, and Martin O’Malley with 0. Hillary Clinton was predicted to win the Democratic vote, but by a much larger margin than she did. Three months ago, Sanders and Clinton faced off in Iowa, and Sanders trailed Clinton by 30 points.

It is clear that his campaign has been making great progress over those 3 months, and the race between these two candidates in the coming months will be quite interesting.

The Republican party had a more competitive race on their hands in Iowa. With a record setting attendance, there were more than 180,000 tallied votes for the Republican candidates. Coming in first place with 51,666 votes (27.6%) was Ted Cruz, followed by billionaire Donald Trump (24.6%), and Marco Rubio (23.1%).

Going into the Republican Caucus, it was expected that there would be a close race between those three candidates, however Donald Trump was the projected winner going into polling day. Unexpectedly, Ted Cruz pulled off the win for the Republicans by defeating Trump by 2%.

The Iowa Caucus has been a great indicator of which candidates stand a chance at gaining their respective party nomination, and the upcoming primaries will be an even better way of seeing who will be on the ballot come election day.

Advice/How To, Local

No more parking tickets during snow emergencies

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Have you ever been confused where to park when the City of St. Paul calls a snow emergency? In this article I would like to inform you on helpful information about parking during the times we get a lot of snow. When the city of St. Paul calls a snow emergency due to too much snow, the city needs to plow all the side streets so that the streets are clear to drive on. There’re places you’re allowed to park during the night time and then during the day you’re allowed to park in the areas you weren’t allowed to park at night.

But how do you know where to park during the different times?

How do you know when there is a snow emergency?

Me, being a teenager, and a recently new licensed driver, I am not too aware of where I can and can’t park during snow emergencies. The last time there was a snow emergency, when I walked out to my car, the next morning, to come to school, there was a parking ticket waiting for me on my windshield.

You’re probably wondering why my parents didn’t notify me as to what side of my street to park on. They did tell me what side to park on, but they disagreed on what side was the night side and what side was the day side. I decided to listen to my dad and park on the side he told me to park on because he does work for the city of St. Paul and I thought he would know before my mom would. Turns out he was wrong, and it is going to cost $56.00 now to pay for the ticket.

Now I know which side to park on, and now I can prevent ever getting a parking ticket for such a simple thing. Because of what happened to me, I want to help all of you other licensed drivers, who aren’t too familiar with these parking policies, on making sure you don’t get a parking ticket like me.

Usually beginning at 9 p.m. on a snow emergency the plows start plowing the night side of the side streets. There’re signs on side streets that do tell which side is the night plow route, which means during the night (starting at 9 p.m.) you don’t park on that side and you’re allowed to park on the opposite side of the street.

By 8 a.m. the following morning all cars are expected to be moved to the opposite side of the street, otherwise they will be ticketed and towed.

On busier streets, you typically are not allowed to park on either side of the street. On streets like this there are signs that say “No parking anywhere during a snow emergency”.

If you do not see a sign, there is a phone number you can call to check and ask if your car is parked in an okay spot. If you do not have your car parked on the correct side of the street, you will be ticketed and possibly towed. If your car does not get towed the plowers will plow around your car which leaves your car buried beneath snow, and it’s a real big hassle on getting your car out.

 If you’re still not sure on where to park your car during snow emergencies there’re many resources you can use to find out and prevent yourself from getting a ticket. You can call 651-266-PLOW to know when there is a snow emergency, or you can text STPAUL SNOW to 468311 to receive text messages when there is a snow emergency in effect.

Online at http://stpaul.gov/snow is another resource to check when there is a snow emergency.

If you ever have any complaints on how the snow plowing was on your street you can submit any complaints to SnowEmergency@ci.stpaul.mn.us or by calling 651-266-9700.

Next time there is a snow emergency I will know where to park and I won’t get a parking ticket. Hopefully, I helped any of you new licensed drivers who also weren’t sure on where to, and where not to, park during a snow emergency! Here are some websites for more helpful information.

https://www.stpaul.gov/departments/public-works/street-maintenance/snow-emergency-information

http://kstp.com/news/stories/s23075.shtml

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/snow-emergency-information/

Thank You!

Editorials/Student Voice, News

Diversity in the media

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2016 has marked the second year in a row where the major nominees for the Oscars have been all white. Even President Obama has put his two cents into the conversation, “Are we making sure everyone gets a fair shot?”

But it isn’t just the lack of representation for African Americans. According to the LA times, it has been 54 years (since 1957) since a Latina person has won an Academy Award. However, white actors are being applauded when playing Latino and Asian characters.

But this isn’t a new issue. Ever since the film industry has started, it has been white dominated. Maybe people have been giving more attention to diversity in media recently because of the popularity Black Lives Matter has been given, and the resurgence of topics being brought to popular media because of social media. Obviously the hashtag #oscarssowhite has brought together many people with similar ideas to solidify what they want to see in the media. According to a study done on 18 top Hollywood companies done by NPR, 94% of the CEOS were white, and 100% were male. The overwhelming white dominance in the film industry both cuts away important stories that can be told through a minority’s perspective, but also takes away opportunities from talented people of color and LGBT people.

African Americans have been going against Hollywood by making their own films and TV networks. Although African Americans have made strides in diversity, African Americans have repeatedly been given stereotypical roles. Like being a maid or a slave.

Other minorities like Asians and Latinos have been given stereotypical roles as well. Asians are usually given roles that are related to being smart and not speaking English. Latinos are also treated like African Americans and Asians in that they often are portrayed as servants or people who can’t speak English.

LGBT members are rarely given diverse roles in popular film, they don’t go far from the flamboyant feminine gay men. Like roles in Modern Family and WIll and Grace. However more diverse LGBT roles are now being seen in popular series such as Orange is the New Black. 

Indigenous people are possibly the most stereotyped for example they are often portrayed as being “blood thirsty savages” and of being red face. Their plight has been gaining more attention due to the push by the Native community to change the logo of the Washington Redskins.

It’s important to have roles for minorities that aren’t just stereotypes. Dejra Bishop, a 15 year old sophomore at Highland Park Senior High, talks about diversity, “It feels good because I’m not just stereotyped as something bad. Black people can be good characters as well.”

News, World

Oil/Gas prices and the economy

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With the global stock market off to its worst start of the year ever, many are wondering what is causing this trend and what it means for the United States economy. The answer can be found in the oil and gasoline industry, where we are seeing some of the lowest prices for these items in the last decade.

Oil and gas prices have been dropping so much because, simply, there is a large supply of it. This sudden drop in price is great for consumers like us, but hurts the global stock market because the companies that sell the gas and oil are not making as big of a profit as they once were before. This in turn has brought down the energy companies’ shares in the stock market by nearly 10 percent. The price of oil has now fallen so low that investors believe that this could mean global economic growth is much weaker than expected, which could hurt all companies.

Normally, lower prices on gas and oil would signal that the economy is in good shape. However, in this instance, one could argue that since the profit drop is so low it could drag down entire companies and indexes within the stock market. The production of oil in the U.S and many other countries has not changed significantly during this time, and with international sanctions against Iran being lifted, there could be even more oil resources available than before. Nearly 10 years ago, during the financial crisis, U.S consumers were worried about gas and oil prices being too high, and now with prices decreasing as they are, we have become worried about prices being too low.