The Spectrum Newspaper September 2022

SPECTRUM

Legacy Day Serves As Time To Connect Together

Lisa Sackreiter clarifies miscon ceptions Amelia Bush | Managing Editor

I

n its sixteenth year, Legacy Day offers a time to be a part of the larger school communi ty. This year, the theme is Come to the Table: Belonging, Contributing, & Thriving.

L isa Sackreiter , Director of Community Service, described the service activities stating, “Our service activities are connected to food and organizations that provide food in the com munity. Two of our four color groups are pack ing food in the ice are na. It’s a fortified, fla vored oatmeal that will be distributed to kids through Every Meal…

two of the other groups will be packing matter snack packs.” Despite common misconceptions, Legacy Day isn’t about just service. Sackreiter commented that “It’s both [community ser vice and community bonding] it’s very much about building commu nity within Blake… one portion of that is this service action that we take together but that’s

45 minutes of the day and we are together for 6 hours. It’s about building connection and belonging at Blake and one of the ways we do that is by serving to gether.” The community rarely gets the oppor tunity to get together across all campuses, so it’s important to take advantage of the rela tionships that are built through Legacy Day.

2022 SPIRIT WEEK THEMES:

Faith Zhao | Contributing Writer

MON

Blake Day! Wear Blake Bear T-shirts, sweaters, hats, etc. The Blake colors are green, blue, white, and brown. Let’s

business!

WED

see how

we

look like the lawyers that

are

TUES

TWIN day! Partner up with a friend; this is your opportunity to match! Or better yet, find two friends (triplets) or three (quadruplets)!

sweetgreen, a new salad chain, is put to the test when compared to its sim ilar counterpart Crisp & Green.

Learn more about the environmentally friendly rain garden out by the west entrance and science wing.

FRI

HOMECOMING NIght and it’s a white out! Wear white shirts, face paint, pants, skirts, TRY TO look like a fun piece of paper.

Thur

Jersey day! Wear your favorite team’s jersey, hat, etc. or even better, wear

See how Gunnar Johnson ‘23 and Charlie Weyer haeuser ‘23 are coming along with building their own car.

Jim Arnold and Sally Countryman ‘23 place ketchup, oatmeal and other goods into the Legacy Day donation bins.

Julia Everett

Charlotte Opp

Rowan Wallin

Editors: Amelia Bush | Zoey Ueland

Charlotte Opp

Grade Retreats Aim To Connect Students, Provide Fun

Twelfth graders bond at camp in Wisconsin

Kate Rekas | Staff Writer

According to Jim Mahoney, for mer grade dean and current college counselor, the senior retreat used to be a weekend long affair.

Despite this overnight tradition end ing this year’s retreat proved to be a success. While attendance is “mandatory,” the retreat was on a Sunday and while most of the class attended, not all seniors participated.

Marmet

Rotenberg |

At noon the class bussed out to Camp St. Croix in Hudson, WI, for a day of phone-free fun and distrac tion free communication. Senior ad visor David Zalk was a fan of the policy, saying, “that [the phone-free policy] is incredibly valuable, to get people paying attention to who and what is going on around them.” “I thought it was fun, quite successful, . . . there was a really good vibe among the class.”

Eleventh graders see animals at Como Zoo

Mackenzie Higgins | Food Editor

Tenth graders explore Minneapolis landmarks

E arlier this September the class of 2025 headed out on their annual retreat and ventured around Minneapolis on foot. The sophomore class was dropped off at Stone Arch bridge and from there set out to see important Minneapolis landmarks chosen due to their roots in Minneapolis’ culture.

Class of 2026 assembles in the courtyard before their carnival.

In-Depth

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Once arriving on the camp grounds, students participated in conversation dyads. For these dy ads, students were randomly paired and given a list of reflective and deep questions to ask each other. Next, students returned to their ad visories and went to different sta tions around the campground. Advi sories were grouped at each station to compete in various academic and sporting events. Then students had freetime and a pasta dinner.

The Class of 2024 started their retreat day on cam pus in advisory with competi tions organized by the grade’s Forum reps: Uma Bhardwaj ‘24 , Karn Kaura ‘24 , and Sam Hardy ‘24 . The advisories all participated in a Kahoot and answered trivia questions about the 11th grade advisors.

Kirsten Holm’ s advisory made their way to the Guth rie, the sculpture garden and, the Prince Mural all on foot to inform themselves about the history and art of Minneapolis.

Claire Cao | Contributing Writer

STAFF WRITERS: Lilly Anderson, Uma Bhardwaj, Kevin Bizily, Kaylee Chen, Ahan Devgun, Ainsley Pfaum, Kate Rekas, Andrew Richardson, Eva Stegic, and Max Yousha

STAFF ARTISTS: Julia Everett and Melody Lee

BECOME A STAFF MEMBER: Contribute to the paper three times consecutively to be pro moted to a staff writer!

JOIN SPECTRUM:

Spectrum meets in Room 351 during both lunches every Friday. Please come if you are interested in writing, drawing, designing, podcasting or taking pictures for the newspaper.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:

Disagree with something that’s in the paper? Have an opinion you want to share? Like to draw editorial cartoons? Take a stand and speak out. E-mail letters or editorial cartoons to spectrum@blakeschool.org or deliver them to room 351. Please limit letters to 400 words.

MISSION STATEMENT:

The primary purpose of the Blake School Spectrum is to report news and to explain its meaning and signifcance to our readers and the com munity. We hope to inform, entertain and provide a school forum for the unrestricted ex change of ideas and opinions.

STYLE STATEMENT:

Spectrum uses Associated Press (AP) Style as of the Feb ruary 2020 issue.

Advisories were then given time to practice skits that would be performed at a lakeside camp fire. The spirit as the sun set and the skits were definitely the high light of the retreat. The night ended with smores and a class rendition of “Wonderwall” and “Sweet Caro line”.

The retreat was a success and further integrated the class of 2023 for their final year as high school students.

Next, there was an “Amazing Race” style scavenger hunt that had juniors running around the Upper School looking for clues. The main event of the day, however, was a trip to Como Zoo. After the morning events, juniors picked up their bagged lunches and loaded the buses. At the zoo, advisories spent time walking around and visiting the different animals while also completing a dif ferent zoo themed scavenger hunt. Most advisories gathered at the Como Harbor to watch the “Sparky Sea Lion Show.” The show featured some of the zoo’s sea lions, none of which were named “Sparky,” and their many impressive tricks.

Aveline Carroll ‘24 adds, “I liked the sea lion show. It was very good and the sea lions are nice.” Overall, she enjoyed the day explaining, “it was just fun to hang out with people.” After the show, the juniors had lunch at the zoo and did some goal setting be fore heading back to the Up per School.

To end their fun day of bonding, juniors joined the rest of the grades at the car nival where they dunked deans and enjoyed popcorn, ice cream, and cotton candy.

Mackenzie Mcilmail’s ad visory made their way to First Avenue and then to the Bob Dylan Mural. Each advisory had the liberty to go to any location off a list the school gave them. According to Mi chelle Jiang ‘25 , “it was nice to be with my advisory all day and getting to bond with them and getting to learn more about the people around me.” And for Meri Harkins ‘25 , “It was very fun and it was really nice to be able to get out in the sunshine in the last good month in the year. I got to get closer with new people in my advisory.”

In the future, Jiang would prefer to, “choose from a set of different places we wanted to go to. It would be nice if they gave us a list but not make any requirements to go to [specific locations] to see what you can do around town.”

In all, the sophomore grade retreat was a fun and connective experience for the 10th graders to get a grasp of the city they live in.

The class of 2026 started the day by reflecting on the val ues that they valued the most. Next, they went outside for a community building bingo, en couraging the class to interact with new classmates to fill their bingo sheet, while letting others discover new traits about them. Then, they went back to advisory to choose a value each advisory preferred the most, writing it on a small paper bear. Together, the class put all their bears together to create a mural of a bear. Nova Stay ‘26 found this part very en joyable, “writing things on the bears was really fun.”

After, students were spread out on the field to create the numbers “2026” with their bodies for a photo. Later on, the other classes joined them on the field and enjoyed a variety of sports such as frisbee and soccer. To finish off the day, a carnival was offered to the school. “My fa vorite part was the food trucks,” Logan O’Connell ’26 explained. These food food trucks included cotton candy, popcorn, and ice cream and were stationed around the parking lot. Despite all of this, many found the lack of bev erage options to be disappointing. O’Connell suggested “[providing] actual drinks, even if it was just water.”

Finally, students were giv en the opportunity to dunk their grade deans by throwing a ball at a target, causing the deans to fall into the pool of water below them. Although the day was in credibly fun, all things have to come to an end. By 2:30, the grade retreat was over, and ev eryone headed home.

New Substitute Coordinator, Shares Passions, Hobbies, Pets

Zach Dotray hopes to connect, help students

Mackenzie Higgins | Food Editor

Originally from Loving, Texas, new reserve teacher and sub stitute coordinator Zach Dotray first came to Minnesota for col lege where he attended Macales ter and met his partner. He spent some time away from Minnesota for more school, but swiftly re turned because of his love for the Twin Cities. Dotray comes to Blake from St. Paul’s Creative Arts Secondary School where he ran a program that provided tutor ing and classes before and after school to communities that were traditionally underserved, and be fore that, he worked as a teaching fellow for a college.

Outside of teaching, Dotray enjoys reading about historical philosophy and theo ry and collecting records- his most recent additions include Nora Brown’s “Long Time to Be Gone” and Marisa Ander son’s “Still.” For a long time, Dotray pursued his other pas sions of gardening and cooking professionally at different farm to table establishments like Red Table in Northeast Minneapolis. While he’s since left the food industry, Dotray still enjoys cooking and food production as a hobby.

These hobbies have “all been on pause for the last 10 months.” He continues, “I have a 10 month old daughter… so that’s my main hobby currently.”

Nowadays, Dotray’s free

time is typically spent outside, whether with his family or bik ing the greenway. He remarks, “I live right by Powderhorn Park so we go for a lot of walks and spend a lot of time around the lake.”

In addition to their daugh ter, Dotray and his partner also have a cat, Penelope, who re cently turned three. He classifies her as a pandemic cat because “she lived a normal life for six months and then she didn’t see anyone for two and a half years, so now that we have a daughter and people want to come visit us, she’s a little feisty because she’s not used to it.”

Dotray explains that he will most likely be the person to step in when a class needs a sub. He adds, “Half the job is that I’m

the first one off of the bench and the other half is figuring out who is next.” By having one consistant substitute, Do tray hopes to create a stronger relationship with the student body when teachers are absent.

New Substitute Coordinator, Mr. Do tray poses outside his offce, Room 120, near Brain Sago’s room.

Georgia

Tenth grade Colburn and Molter advisories walk together, along the banks of the Mississippi River.

McManus-Graham advisory pose for a photo at Como Zoo.

Class of 2023 sings “Sweet Caroline” and “Wonderwall” around the fre pit to end their retreat in Wisconsin.

Georgia Wilson

Claire Cao

Cleo Kilpatrick

Rowan Wallin

The Blake School

Kenwood Pkwy

Editor-In-Chief: Rowan Wallin

Cleo Kilpatrick

Tomczik

Ninth graders stay on campus, enjoy carnival

Participate in Spirit Week

is the heard mentality. Lily Erlandson ‘23 says that the thing that would impact her participation in Homecoming the most would be if other people don’t engage with it. She explains, “If other people don’t do it, why would I?” Finn Woerner ‘25 says that the themes of the week are “always pretty good, and it makes it better when all the students engage.” Michelle Elliot ‘25 explains how she would like to change some of the chosen themes. She says, “Jersey day is espe cially bad, but the rest are ok, but I feel like we’ve had them before.” Sam Leslie ‘24 agreed that the themes aren’t “really interesting… But I see how someone might find them interesting.”

Minoff Room Redecorated

Enthusiasm de pends upon ac cessibility, friends

Rhea Balachandran, Ava Mittra & Klarissa Yu | Contributing Writers

October 3 marks the start of Spirit Week in anticipation of the upcom ing Homecoming football game on Friday (October 7) and dance on Saturday (October 8). Spirit Week themes are decided by the SIACs, which this year in cludes twin day, Blake day, white-out day, business (for mal) day, and jersey day.

Through interviews, students expressed their opinions on participation in Spirit Week. It seems that the majority

of students have decided that they will participate in Spirit Week. Shoumili Tarafder ‘26 says, “Of course, why wouldn’t I?” For other stu dents, however, participation in Spirit day can be tricky due to the clothing items and accessories required.

SIAC member Rishabh Balachandran ‘23 plans to make themes easier to participate in by “generally having things that would be available to me and others so I don’t have to go buy stuff.” Dominic Bollettieri ‘25 agreed with this, say ing that the thing that would impact his engagement level the most would be “how ac cessible the themes are. Like if I can actually wear it.”

Things that generally seem to impact students’ participation in Spirit Week

From the students in terviewed, ranging from freshmen to seniors, almost all are going to attend the Homecoming football game as well as the following Homecoming dance. Raid en Chen ‘26 says he won’t be attending the dance be cause “none of [his] friends are going.” Unlike Chen, Zoe Gustafson ‘26 says that she will definitely participate because she doesn’t “want to be the one person who doesn’t go.” Balachandran states he will be attending the dance and football game because they are a “part of homecoming. The whole weekend is homecoming.”

Rania Abdullahi ‘25 ex plained that Spirit Week, “also gets everyone really excited for the event that’s coming, like for homecom ing stuff. Everyone’s in a happy mood.”

Amanda Minoff , English teacher for juniors and seniors, revitalized her classroom this year. After moving just one room away from her previous room, “[The new] space is much more comfortable than where [she] taught last year.” Minoff elaborates, “Last year as a new faculty member, I felt like I was just flying by the seat of my pants a little bit; I didn’t really have time to really settle in. It was nice this year having a little more breathing room and having a nice work space is really important to me, and I know it’s important to the students.” Minoff describes her room as “comfort able, eclectic, and hopefully inspiring.”

Above her desk hangs, in Minoff’s words, “a painting that is actually very important to me. It’s Virginia Wolf painted by her sister Vanessa Bell. I’ve always been interested in their sister relationship. Vanessa Bell was a painter and her sister was a writer. They had an interesting creative partnership. They were part of a larger group called the Bloomsbury group. It’s a very juicy community to research; It feels like you’re gos siping. I can sense Vanessa Bell’s presence behind it. I hope students aren’t creeped out by it.”

Objective-based Grading Incentivises Student Achievement

Amelia Bush | Managing Editor

O

bjective based grad ing is a system that is getting incorporated into more classes. It uses a four category scale to assess and track students’ progress and learning in the class. The lowest being “be ginning” and the highest being the “advanced” categories.

The AP Comput er Science Principles class’s syllabus describes the beginning category as being able to “use primitive data structures in my program” whereas the advanced category is described as “I con sistently use data struc tures efficiently and ele gantly in my programs.”

Within each unit, there are different objectives.

The objectives a student masters, the higher their grade will be. For ex ample, in Calculus AB there are 15 different objectives, being profi cient in all 15 is equiv alent to an A whereas being proficient in nine objectives is a B. Madeline Bur ton , computer science teacher and Head of the Computer Science Department, has been using objective based grading for five years in her classes. The pre vious computer science teacher, Sean Hickey, also used this system.

Burton chose to stick with this unique grading system because “I find that it brings more clari ty to the thing that I am assigning and grading.”

Another important factor that Burton addressed was how “over time, it has helped me identify the skills that are im portant to my course.”

Burton went on to describe the transition between regular grad ing and objective based

grading stating that, “For each teacher, it is a tran sition and a progress.

My first year, I worked really hard to have stan dards, but I didn’t do a great job of filling out the whole rubric…I was really only talking about skills so like ‘Can I do this problem? Can I do that thing?’” Burton also placed an emphasis on being able to “ar ticulate thinking” stating that “learn[ing] to learn is more important than ‘Can you add these two numbers?’”

Maggie Molter used this system at previous schools and has begun to use it at Blake. Molt er comments, “It incor porates a lot of embed ded retakes…I think that’s good also for the learning process to have multiple retakes.”

As for the tran sition between grading, Molter adds, “It’s defi nitely a team decision. The whole department didn’t decide to do it the same year but I think all of us are inter

ested in thinking about what the best way is for us to communicate stu dent learning.”

The teachers that are using the system are working together to cre ate similar expectations for the students so that there is consistency.

Molter also puts em phasis on the history of point based grading and used her job as a com

parison point stating, “If you look at the histo ry of traditional points based grading, the his tory of it was used to sort people for factory jobs. Earn points so you could get letter grades to find out if you were compliant to work in a factory. For my job… I never get assessed using points and I don’t get a letter grade…the feed

back I get in my job is more aligned with ob jectives.”

Molter adds, “I be lieve in my professional heart that this grading system helps students learn better. First of all, this type of grad ing exists in colleges… certainly you’re not go ing to see a lot of point based grading in the real world.”

Molter teaches AP Calculus AB during block 2. For each assignment, students are assessed through the object-based grading system with multiple retakes to earn a “profcient” status.

Learning growth exhibited cat egorically, not numerically

Sally Countryman

Rowan Wallin

Rowan Wallin

Lilly Anderson

Beach day theme was well represented at the SMB football game on September 16. Participants wore leis and pool foaties!

Rowan Wallin | Editor-in-Chief

Treble and Dozen Take on New Year

Student bonding and performanc es ramp up

The student-led Treble and Dozen choirs have been an integral part of Blake’s choir commu nity for years. Felix Re idel ‘24 has been a mem ber of Dozen for the past two years and commented “It’s really fun, it’s a tight knit group. We have inside jokes…it feels a lot closer and you get to know the peo ple in the group and it’s a way to con nect sing ing to the commu nity that’s overall fun. It’s never a bad experience.”

The two clubs meet twice a week before school to work on many different aspects of sing ing. According to Re

idel, “Usually if we have something that we have to work on or if it’s just reviewing we will go into sectionalls, meaning we will split up depending on if you’re bass or ten or, and just run through whatever parts we need to…then we’ll come back together and run through the song, check on any parts that we may be getting confused on.”

Right now, the clubs are focusing on perfect ing “The Star Spangled Banner,” which will be singing during the home

singing an all group song.

Last year for our winter concert we sang a song all together but in the spring concert we didn’t. It just depends, we’ll even connect with all of the other choirs and listen to each other and give each other some feedback. Normally we are kind of separated.” The choir’s also have joint traditions, for ex ample, they go around the school singing songs on Valentine’s Day.

rangement that works for A Capella singing.

Short Story Reviews

coming football game. Treble and Dozen are currently practicing to gether, however, this is not common. Reidel stat ed “Sometimes we’ll be

Dozen and Treble has two concerts through out the year, a winter and spring con cert, as well as a tour in Chicago. Re idel added that their lead ers “are go ing to choose a couple of songs and run it through the rest of the group and we’ll probably vote on it and see which ones we like the best.” That’s not all, the leaders also have to make sure there is sheet music or an ar

There are many ad vantages to a student led choir. Reidel voiced his experience with the choir stating, “It’s a mix of both [individual and group growth]... most people are required to do choir to be in Dozen’s so it’s kind of about individual growth and a lot about reading music and participating in a one gender choir. It’s also about being able to be student led and still succeed.” According to Reidel, a direct advan tage is that “it takes a little bit of stress [off], in the sense that you’re not worried about your choir teacher always checking in on you and really nit picking. You’re kind of able to choose….not only what your singing, we do get to pick what we sing in choir, we get to choose modern or old songs. It really changes the dynam ics.” Reidel also mentioned that he “was originally not gonna [join dozen] but [he] just said “why the heck not” and it was super fun” and attested to the positive fun environ ment the clubs provide.

Finding ‘Perfect’ Homecoming Outfit Reveals Style

Clothing and ac cessories are a major statement

Eva Stegic | Columnist

As October nears, so does the first dance of the school year, Homecoming! School is starting to find a rhythm and the idea of finding the perfect dress for Hoco suddenly ap pears. Maybe you have been planning your dress since the summer, may be you already have it, or maybe, if you’re like me, you are waiting until

the last minute to find a dress you like. The an ticipation of seeing the dresses your friends chose, the shoes they chose to go with them, and the jewelry they paired with it can be exciting, but how will you know you chose the right dress? Maybe you have asked your friends where they got their dresses, maybe you go to Nordstrom or Macy’s, maybe you thrift it, but overall shopping for dresses should be a fun experience. When asked if her friends influenced her choice of dress, Julia Rasmussen ‘23 said, “Ac tually no, it didn’t.” Ras

mussen was more excited to try on and test different styles of her choice than to buy a dress from the same shop as her friends.

Julia went to Ridgedale

Mall and found many great choices at Macy’s, which she described, “has a lot of options for ev eryone.” As for shoes, wearing sneakers or ten nis shoes with a home coming dress has been a major trend for the past few years because they’re easier to walk around in, and are less of a state ment. When you really want your dress to pop, try dressing down the rest of the outfit to accentuate the unique dress you found.

Quick, Easy Halloween Costumes

Recent TV shows

outfits

Georgia Wilson | Contributing Writer

As October approaches with its spooky activities, the need for Halloween costumes rises. Over the course of the year, more tv shows and trends come out sparking new ideas for costumes. Whether you’re trick or treating, out all night, or merely watching a scary movie, here are some halloween costume ideas that will surely satisfy your halloween necessities.

If you’re a fan of Squid Game, an easy cos tume to create would be

one of the players. Simple, just buy a cheap blue track suit from Target and cut out the number/player you want to be, allowing for an effortless costume at a low cost. Although, if you’re into the recent TV show, the Stranger Things school cheerleader/basketball play er is right up your alley. You can get an easy Party City costume just at $35.

Jahnvi Chopra ‘25, was The Rock last year for Hal loween and made the costume by herself.

Chopra claimed, “I like more of an original look,

like something more cre ative”. Aiming for a more classic halloween look, you could go as the iconic Cher from the movie Clueless, with a yellow plaid skirt and blazer. But, if you’re thinking of a more horrorlike look, possibly Michael Myers would be for you. This includes an easy all black look with the mask from even Amazon. When asked about if she would use a costume from a TV show, Chopra explained, “I was going to be Velma cause I have bangs and I could get glasses”. Hallow een is the best time of the year to express your cre ativity and really go full out, and these Halloween costume ideas will surely allow you to do so.

Different col lections build strong emotions

Uma Bhardwaj | Columist

S hort story collec tions to make you feel…

Sad: Jumpa Lahiri’s Interpret er of Maladies is truly one of the most heartwrenching col lections I have ever read. Tell ing about a va riety of Indian people in a vari ety of places, it opens a window into the painful aspects of every day life, high lighting Indian culture without exoticizing it.

Weird: The Shell Col lector by Antho ny Doer might make you want to crawl out of your skin. But de spite the fact that some parts are genuinely disturb ing, something about the descriptive storytelling kept me hooked. Most of these stories feature relationships with na ture, making us question not just our place in the world, but the world in and of itself.

Hopeful:

authors, Nicola Yoon and Angie Thomas. Each of them imbues the stories with a dif ferent tone as we watch the sometimes surprising effects of a city-wide blackout on the bustling city of New York. Fo cusing on a central sto ryline of Black joy and connection, this book will make you think that maybe things aren’t so bad after all.

Uma Bhardwaj

Uma bought this book about a year ago from Barnes and Noble. Her favorite short story from the novel is called, “The Door that Wasn’t There.”

While it’s technically a novel, Blackout is writ ten as a series of in tertwined stories by the

Goosebump-y: Melissa Albert wrote two novels based in a world of twisted fairy tales – and finally, she’s given us those fairytales. Tales from the Hinter land is amazing, creepy and full of evil, doors and creatures that lure you out in the night. Sa distic and beautiful, this book will scare you in the best way possible.

Fall Play ‘Clue’ Coming Soon

Raiden Chen & Tara Reddy | Contributing Writers

In 1949, the first version of the murder mystery game Clue was released. The game was so popu lar that it became a film in 1985, and now, Clue is coming to Blake! Taous Khazem, the upper school theater teacher said, “Clue is the most produced play right now in high schools in the United States.” This play provides an intrigu ing mystery leading the audience to wonder, “why were the guests invited to the mansion?” and “who murdered the chef?!” De clan O’Connell ‘23, who has performed in countless Upper School theater pro ductions, says that “Clue

seems like one of the best picks for a show we’ve had re cently” as well as, “if you’re wanting to try out theater, this show would be a great starting point.

If you have any interest in audi tioning or being on crew or anything I would absolutely recommend trying it now, because a bet ter chance to start might not come for a while.” O’Connell’s love for theater comes from the com munity and the reward of the final product coming together from months of work, and he is really ex cited to see how this years play turns out. Auditions were on September 22 and September 23 from 3:30 to 5:30.

This play is available to all grades and all lev els of commitment whether you decide to work behind the scenes or have the light on you. Come watch the show! And see the expe rience through the actors of “the thrill [of] actu ally putting on a show!”

Signups for cast and crew of Clue were published and cast list is on the bulletin board!

Amelia

Julia Rasmussen ‘23 picked her outfit and went to Edi na’s homecoming dance.

Declan O’Connell ‘23 singing in Dozen and practicing for “The Star Spangled Banner” for the Homecoming game.

The board game has come to life

Bristol Pann

Yoni Zacks

Cleo Kilpatrick

Julia Rasmussen

Battle of the Salads: Crisp & Green vs. Sweetgreen

National, local chains com pete over ingredients, price, ambiance

Sam Tomczik & Zoey Ueland | News Editor & Managing Editor

Crisp & Green, the popular and ex panding Wayzata based salad chain which first opened in 2016, is facing its first big competition: Sweetgreen. Sweetgreen, which first opened in Washington, D.C. in 2007, has restaurants that dot across the east and west coasts. Sweetgreen just opened its first lo cation in Minnesota at the Galleria in Edina.

Sweetgreen’s emphasis on quality ingredients is apparent in their salads and bowls, like the kale used in their Caesar salad.

In an effort to determine which restaurant was best, we tested out both in a salad marathon. To make it even, we sampled identical salads from both restaurants: the Caesar. Both salads contained romaine, tomatoes, parmesan crisps, shaved parmesan, and roasted chicken (which we swapped out for roasted tofu). Sweetgreen also added shredded kale and a lime squeeze, whereas Crisp & Green in corporated baby kale, a lemon squeeze, and sunflower seeds. We also asked for a slice of bread with the salad, complimentary at both restaurants.

VS.

evident in the salad. The kale was delicious and perfectly chopped and the tofu was flavorful and had a slight kick. The dress ing had a heavy “hint” of lime which made it slightly acidic for us but it was also a nice way to break up the fla vors. Sweetgreen’s complimentary bread was a generous slice of sourdough, which tasted fresh and would pair well with any salad.

Sweetgreen prides it self on using lots of locally sourced ingredients which was

Popular, New Drinks Embrace Fall

Seasonal drinks from Star bucks, Caribou capture fall flavors

Gabi Marmet | Arts & Culture Editor

A s fall is approaching, coffee chains have begun serving their popular fall drinks. Many rec ommendations of these drinks are available online, and can mainly be found at Starbucks and Caribou. The popular fall drinks from Star bucks include the Pumpkin Spice Latte, Apple Crisp Oat Milk Mac chiato, Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino, as well as a Matcha Tea Latte with Pump kin Spice topping. Other popular fall drinks from Caribou are the Pumpkin Latte, Pumpkin Chai, as well as the Apple Blast.

After school and before my fall sport, I went to Starbucks with Molly Anderson ‘25 to try some of their new fall drinks. The first beverage I tried was an Iced Chai Tea Latte with the Pumpkin Cold Foam. It was very refreshing and tasty. I highly recommend it. I am

a big chai tea drinker, and the Pumpkin Cold Foam really added a nice touch. Another day, I tried the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. Aside from being a little sweet, I really enjoyed this drink. Anderson remarked after trying a sip of this drink, “It’s like a slap across the face with fall.”

Comparatively, Crisp & Green’s salad just didn’t match the quality of Sweetgreen’s. They use baby kale rath er than mature kale and the pumpkin seeds are not a welcomed addition. The bread provided was a half slice of dry bread which did not improve the salad.

Crisp & Green currently owns 13 locations across Minnesota with plans to expand even further in coming years.

Additionally this salad was slightly more ex pensive. However, they mix the salad up in a separate bowl which fully coats all the ingredi ents in the dressing.

While it’s best to support local businesses (a branding which Crisp & Green heavily leans into), Sweetgreen proved to be the winner of our salad competition. The ambiance was more lively, the ingredients were much more fresh, there was an abundance of fun toppings, all of the accoutrements were compostable, and it was cheaper. Be tween the two, the competition is fierce and it will take some time to see which company comes out on top.

Alternative Burgers Provide Options

Impossible, Beyond burgers cater to unique diets

Yoni Zacks | Sports Editor

As someone who keeps kosher, I used to get jealous when I would go out to eat with my friends and they would get ham burgers while I would be stuck with still great, but less desirable options. However, that all changed with the rise of Impossible Burgers and Be yond Burgers, which are plant-based burgers that taste very similar to real hamburgers.

Fans of fall drinks often create new combina tions that aren’t on the offcial menu, like this blended Pumpkin Chai Latte from Starbucks.

There are tons of places across the Twin Cities where you can get impossible burgers. I chose to try three. The first one I tried was Burger King’s Impossible Whopper. Having had this before, I expected similar results. However, the burger that I received was burnt, and tasted that way, even when masked with ketchup. The burnt taste was disap pointing as it made the food less enjoyable. The fries were amazing, super crispy, and the best by a mile.

Next, I tried Red Robin, which

is one of my favorite restaurants. I had to order takeout due to time restraints and it was still good. The burger itself was very good, how ever, the fries were varied between lukewarm, soggy, and fresh fries.

The final place I tried was Wahlburgers. This was by far the best burger. The plain pickles on the burger added another layer of flavor. However, the fries were un fortunately soggy. The fried pickles, which I ordered by recommendation, were also delicious.

Chicken Fight: Chick-Fil-A Competes with Raising Cane’s

Food quality, wait times, business morals all affect dining experience

Ethan Klaiman & Jason Rotenberg | Contributing Writer & Sports Editor

Many students love eating fried chicken, but which restau rant does it best? There are many good options, but Raising Cane’s and Chick-Fil-A rise to the top pos ing the question, which is better?

First off, the service at both restaurants was mediocre. There were crowds of people at both restaurants, cre

Some of Chick-Fil-A’s most popular menu items include their chicken nuggets, waffe fries, Chick-Fil-A Sauce, and lemonade.

ating an irritatingly long wait. If you are really in a hurry I would suggest that you park and go inside to order at both restaurants.

At Cane’s, I ordered chicken strips and at Chick-Fil-A, I ordered chicken nuggets. I prefer chicken nuggets over chicken strips because they’re easy to dip into sauce and can be en joyed in minimal bites. Both restaurants made the chicken very crispy, adding to the overall expe rience. In my opinion, the sauce you dip your chick en into is crucial. At Chick-Fil-A, I got buffalo sauce, and at Cane’s, I got the Cane’s sauce. The buf falo sauce was undoubt edly better than the Cane’s

sauce because its spice added more flavor to the chicken and the Cane’s was too thick.

Now onto drinks and sides. I got lemonade and fries at both restaurants.

VS.

Both fries were very good, but Chick-Fil-A’s were better be cause of their superior salt-to-fry ratio. The Cane’s fries were still good, but not all the fries were crispy.

For the lemonade, Chick-Fil-A has a bigger cup size but lacks the flavor that Cane’s has.

Chick-Fil-A, however, is an orga nization that is not only known for its waffle fries and chicken sandwiches but is also known for being incred ibly generous. They are in fact so

For $8.69, Cane’s box combo comes will get you three chick en strips, crinkle fries, a piece of toast, and a 22 ounce drink.

generous, that they contributed three mil lion dollars to homo phobic organizations from 2003-2009. Not only this, but they even thought to donate two mil lion dollars to homophobic or ganizations in 2010 alone! This pro poses the question, is the flavor worth it? Is it worth it to actively support an organization that has such a heavy faith in radical beliefs that they ac tively try to set back a group of peo ple that have been fighting for rights since the 20th century? This dilemma would not even be in the consumers’ thoughts if they were ending their hunger at the debatably worse restau rant, Raising Cane’s.

Jason Rotenberg

Yoni Zacks

Gabi Marmet

Fast-casual chain Wahlburgers partners with Impossible Foods Inc. to serve the Impossible Burger at their restaurants.

Jason Rotenberg

Z oey Ueland

Sa m Tomczik

Injury Hinders Wolfpack, Team Now Ready For Anything

Team starts sea son not accord ing to plan

Ali Hecker | Opinions Editor

This year, the SMB Wolfpack has ex perienced a number of setbacks, from broken collarbones to the com mon cold.

The Wolfpack’s run ning back, Zach Weiner ‘23, says, “I broke my collarbone [September 9] against North Saint Paul in the third quar ter. I took a handoff, and we ran right up the middle and then a guy fell on me and I broke my collarbone. Be cause of the adrenaline, I didn’t feel it at the time, so I played the rest of the game and it was in the fourth quar ter I started to notice I couldn’t lift my left arm up, so I went over to coach who noticed my collarbone sticking out of my skin.

“Then I went to the hospital and I just kind of sat there in the ER.

I got a lot of time to write my college essays, though.”

Weiner isn’t the only football player with an injury. Other injured members of the SMB Wolfpack include Romelio Love with a dislocated shoulder, Ro

land Bentley ‘25 with two broken collarbones, and Aiden Wilson ‘26 with a broken wrist.

Not only is the team suffering from physical injuries, they are also suffering from various illnesses. “Pey ton Lange, [team cap

tain], had pneumonia last week so he missed the first two weeks and [ Tyler Vandersall ‘24 ]—I think he’s sick right now. There’s a lot of sickness going around,” says Landon Dillon ‘24.

These obstacles

have put a lot of pres sure on the team to perform as well as they normally would. The team has recruited War ren Strootman ‘23 , who had never played foot ball previously, to take on the position of run ning back.

The Wolfpack looks forward to the return of Peyton Lange. Weiner says, “[The return of] one of our star offen sive lineman, Peyton, who has had pneumonia for the last two weeks, should prevent injuries, because you have a big guy blocking for all us smaller guys so that should prevent a lot more injury.”

Dillon adds, “With Peyton back, there’s definitely some more winnable games, like our first one. Definitely would have been win nable with Peyton.”

Weiner also brings up the coaches’ shift in strategy, explaining that they are leaning towards a more pass-heavy of fense that should help prevent injury.

Despite these mis fortunes, members of the Wolfpack continue to maintain a posi tive attitude. As Dillon states, “Going forward, I think it’s only going to get better. Only ups from here. I think we’ve already had the low est we’ve been at, so I think sky’s the limit.”

With loss of star, cross coun try is rebuilding

Zoey Ueland | Managing Editor

This is the first year the cross country team is competing with out their star runner of the past few years, Shef West ‘22. Despite re building with a “young” team, they are persevering and gearing up for what looks to be a competi tive and exciting season.

Captain Will Eckes ‘24 explains, “[Dur ing the summer] we had two school run practices and two captains practic es a week and we tried to get enough kids go ing there so that everyone was ready for the season.”

This work has con tinued throughout the fall as Eckes furthers, “Right now practices are Mon day through Friday. They start at 3:45 and they end, I don’t know when, or just to be determined.

“We have captains’ prac tices on Saturday morning, if there’s not a meet, and those start at 9 a.m. Then on those captains’ practic es, we do a long run so we try and run far, and then most of the other prac tices are a mix between easy runs and recovery runs and then workouts.”

The workouts, which shape how the season will

go for many runners, have changed from past years.

Eckes notes, “We really changed up our training style this year and, like I said, we’re doing a lot of longer workouts earlier in the season so we haven’t re ally touched anything fast er yet which is just differ ent than what we’ve done.

“The results are kind of speaking for themselves, a lot of people are running fast early in the season which is usually not what happens so that’s good.”

Assistant Coach Pat rick Barry explains, “Had we spread out meets throughout the season leading right up until Con ference, you know and I think my sense is that this is what maybe hap pened last year, the team was fatigued and flat. This model is with the aim of yeah still getting races in but having a break.”

Despite losing West,

Captain Zoe Edinburgh ‘23 notes, “I think people have a different connota tion towards cross coun try that it’s an individual sport but it is very much a team sport. Seven people race but only Five peo ple score so you need all five people to do well.”

Thus the team is look ing for an abundance of talented athletes. Eckes adds that so far the girl’s team has been performing well, they are currently in the running for win ning their conference meet.

Barry notes, “We had a meet last Wednesday [9/14] but now we have, I want to say, a 3-week gap before Conference, Sections, and State, and that’s by design so we can cut back on the racing so we can really develop our fitness through train ing so that when we do get to Conference and Sec tions we’re really fresh.”

Max Yousha | Staff Writer

As the National Foot ball League kicks off for a lengthy sea son, so do fantasy foot ball leagues. The NFL regular season lasts four months through Decem ber, creating 17 weeks of

fantasy team. This cre ates a competitive envi ronment between friends and family who play against each other. At Blake, many people play fantasy football. There are a variety of leagues using different platforms, different rules, and dif ferent punishments.

These punishments for losing insinuates friendly competition at school, where students can converse among their friends about the crazy events of football

the football games and their fantasy leagues over the weekend.

Revamped Training Progam at XC Fantasy Football Finally Kicks Off Leagues builds community, strengthens re lationships

One student who is an avid fantasy football player is Josiah March ‘24 . March is a member of six fantasy leagues, three of which are with family and friends. He expresses the importance of creating community through fantasy football. He started playing “in 2016 with a group of four friends.” He contin ues, “Before 2016 I had thought about playing but the opportunity had never presented itself.”

Another student who participates in a fantasy football league is Mi chael Hackett ‘24 . Hack ett is currently playing fantasy for his second year, and he really ap preciates the community that it builds. Hackett expresses that fantasy football, “gives people something to talk about” and, “it’s something ev eryone can relate to.”

Teacher Ben Cady also loves the communi ty fantasy football builds as “[he’s] been in the same league with people since [he] was in high school and it’s the best way for [him] to keep in touch with them”

fun, engaging, and com petitive fantasy football.

Each week, fantasy football team owners will set their lineups, with real pro football players to try and beat another

from the previous week end. Every Monday, con versations can be heard throughout the hallways of students, and some times teachers, discuss ing what happened in

With all of the leagues going around Blake, it creates a sense of community and com mon interest that anyone can talk about at any time anywhere.

After an eventful Sunday full of football, the team on the left has a 43% chance of winning, projected to lose by four points.

Max Yousha

Both girls and boys Cross Country teams huddle together after their muddy race in Decorah IA at Luther College.

Jason Rotenberg

The Wolfpack prepare for their epic Firday night matchup against DeLaSalle. As the starting lineup is announced, the team read ies itself for any challenges that present themselves. The Wolfpack ended up winning

game

whopping

Submitted by Cleo Kilpatrick

Boys’ Soccer Finds New Goalie Mid-Season as Captain Steps Up

Injury to start ing goalie forces team to adapt

Faith Zhao | Contributing Writer

Recently, the varsity boys soccer team’s goalie, Roland Bentley ‘25, broke both of his collar bones during a match on September 9.

Marcus Hedlund ‘23 said, “None of us actually had thought he was injured that badly.” His injury was a big shock to everyone.

After the fact, Liam Coley ‘25 sent his well wishes to Bentley: “We miss you and wish that you were here. I hope that you’re feeling better.”

Head Coach Tamba Johnson, said, “It’s never easy losing the starting

goalie you were count ing on.” The entire pro cess of find ing a tempo rary goalie was asking people from Varsity to step up, asking JV players, and even people who were athletic, but did not play soccer. After

Bentley got injured, the team had two practices just dedicated to shooting balls at people who could fill in Roland’s spot. Hedlund said that “[we] probably had like half the team try out playing goalie at some point during practice.” Eventually, after constantly kicking balls at the play

ers trying out for goalie. It was evident that Ben Fox ‘24, a captain usu ally in the center mid defense position, was the best. Fox wasn’t forced to make this switch by coaches. The willing ness to switch shows his dedication to the team.

“Our team is coming

Girls’ Tennis Aims to Continue Legacy

Team has sights set on facing Minnetonka

Jack Ulland | Contributing Writer

Girls tennis is off to a great start this year, beginning the season by winning some key match ups. Most recently, the team beat the Breck Mustangs in a close finish. Led by Nana Vang ‘24, Ellie Nixon ‘23, and Allyson Jay ‘23, they are looking to make a promising run this year.

After having a great season and unfortunately losing in the state tournament last year to Minnetonka, they are looking better than ever. Despite some changes in coaching, with a new assistant coach, the team is ready, and according to Aletta Bartok ‘23, they have “set [their] sights on Benil de and Edina!” From start to finish, matches typically take two to three hours, and there is a lot of action going on the whole time. There are singles, doubles, and exhibition matches during

the time, and when players aren’t on the court, the play ers cheer each other on. The team has big shoes to fill from last year, as the team as a whole placed second last year in the state tourna ment. In addition they had top players reaching spots as high as 13th in singles, and eighth in doubles!

Nixon comments on the change in the team from last year to this year, “we aren’t as good as they were last year,” mostly due to graduat

ing some key players, but while not being hopeful about the Minnetonka match, she does hold out hope in other areas, saying that they are most likely “not going to win, because Minnetonka is so good, but everyone else we can beat.” While Min netonka is quite the daunting challenge, Nixon also says that they “normally do really well towards the end, we take the whole season get ting up to it and in the end we are a lot better.”

together a lot more…we have more younger people, so it’s kind of just us get ting to know each other better,” Johnson explained, “I feel like the guys over there realize that they gotta step up and do more. Play a little bit harder, knowing that we gotta take a little less chances in the back…

so the guys just had to step up the effort defensively.”

Hedlund, a cen ter back, said that, “We can step up and kind of help him [Fox] out like that.” The team has a strong midfield and their defense has been great. The soccer team won both of their conference

matches against Provi dence Academy (2-1) and St. Paul Academy (1-0).

Johnson said, “We always worked hard, but I do think people are more mindful, making that extra little run. These guys com pete very hard.”

Fox, a captain and former midfelder, shows his com mitment to his team by volunteering to play goalie for the rest of the season.

Mystery Soccer Athlete of the Month

Captain leaves positive impact on freshmen

Steven Cao and Tarun Gopalakrishnan | Contributing Writers

T his month’s mystery athlete is competing on the Varsity girls soc cer team. She is a cap tain and a great leader on and off the field.

Teammate Jane Stanchfield ‘26 acknowl edged, “She is always playing very hard and she shows a lot of ef fort every game. She’s always participating in gameday activities and always drives people to excel.” This athlete plays as a defender. The athlete noted, “I will definitely miss all of my friends on the team, and our team is all really close, so it’s gonna be sad leaving them behind, especially the underclassmen.” This athlete has shown her versatility this season by racking up a goal. This athlete is spectacu

lar given the fact she enjoys playing the sport more than watching. It is impressive how well she performs day in and day out. Her play style is unique, she doesn’t compare herself to a specific player but builds her play style herself and motivates the rest of the team.

Charley Bowles ‘26

said, “I’m gonna miss her encouragement and her jokes a lot.” Bowles also went on to say that she is very fast, and her speed is a big part of her game. Her team will miss her, but the positive impact she left will never leave Blake Girls Soccer. Can you guess this month’s mystery athlete? Find out on blakespectrum.org!

Athletes Spend Offseason Competing, Enjoy Relaxed Environment

Summer sports allow for prac tice and fun

Lilly Anderson | Staff Writer

A s many students know, the school of fers countless sports and has countless athletes. Summer time is often spent preparing for school seasons or other leagues.

David Carlson

mentions that he skates “seven times a week” and describes that “the summer is the best time to work on individual skills because the regu lar season is focused on the team.” In addition, Carlson adds that “Blake has [its] own 4v4 league that plays once a week just for fun,” which he participated in regularly.

Payton Smith ‘24 also enjoys school sponsored sports teams with “most

of [her] practice for hock ey during the summer is through STP.” Smith says that playing in the sum mer is much “less pres sure than during the for mal season.” She goes on to add that “it’s flexible,

and I don’t have school going on so it’s not stressful to go to practice and be worrying about

mer sport of lacrosse is much less stressful but it still prepares her for the school season. Brass also notes that she es pecially enjoys summer lacrosse with her class mate Jada Chenitz ‘24

forward to the friend ly summer competition.

how I’m not going to get any sleep that night.”

Regan Brass ‘24 also mentions that her sum

Soren Reyes ‘26 also states that “I pre fer the summer because it is more relaxed and fun but also you are still trying to win.” Reyes en joys soccer and tennis in the summer and looks

While Smith, Brass, and Reyes have all said that they enjoy summer seasons more than school season, Carlson adds “I prefer playing in the for mal season, the summer is developing to be ready for the next season.”

Clearly, our classmates are dedicated athletes who enjoy and compete in the summer just as much as in the school year!

The team has started off strong, currently ranking eighth in the state coming off of last year’s loss in the fnals.

“I prefer the summer because it is more relaxed and fun but also you are still trying to win.”

Soren Reyes ‘26

Nick Witzke

Kicking a free kick, part of the athlete’s job as a defender.

Elena Gill & Rowan Wallin

Annika Johnson

Nick Witzke

Captain and defender Aidan Krush ‘23 sends a free kick accross the feld, showing Fox has the support that he needs.

PETS: RELATIONSHIPS

DOGS HELP WITH DYNAMICS, HAPPINESS

Playful, entertaining pets bring joy, amusement to families

“H

e’s always there.

Always really cheery, ready to give you a hug, or take your mind off things,” says Jahnvi Chopra ‘25 about her well-loved Goldendoodle, Ozzie.

Dogs play a big role in many people’s lives, whether it’s as a play mate, a reason to go out side to get some exercise, or someone who is there when times are tough.

In fact, dogs are extremely lovable and kind-hearted creatures.

As Bristol Pann ‘26 mentions about his dog, Fozzy Bear, “He’s soft and he’s cute and he’s just… dog.” They contin

ue, “He’s a cute fluffy boy who be there when…cry.”

In addition, many dogs contribute massively to the family dynamic. Many dogs have very complex, fun, and not to mention dignified personalities. Pann reflects about his dog’s role in their family, stating, “He’s the young est but also very protec tive at the same time. Like, he barks at anything that comes relatively near our door and he also has a lot of [social] anxiety.”

Chopra’s dog also has a specific place in her family. She contin ues, “He’s kind of like my best friend, my broth er, my child, my uncle.

You know, he’s like ev erything … If we go to the park, he’ll come with us. If we go on a walk, he’ll come with us.”

This is not to say that there are no downsides to owning a dog. It can be tiring to deal with all your dogs’ accidents, or aggressive behavior. Jay la Ferguson ‘26 explains some drawbacks of own ing a dog: “Sometimes they can bark really, re ally loud or they could be jumpy and aggressive.”

Dogs can be a lot of work, but for many, the advantages of own ing a dog heavily out weigh the disadvantages.

Khan’s

Jack Griffn ‘23 and Grace Griffn ‘21 have states, “My experience has been awesome. to see them go from full sized and getting

BIRDS IMPROVE RESpONSIBILITY

Rowan Wallin | Editor-in-Chief

A more unusual pet is a bird. Birds con tain about 14,000 differ ent species, but only a fraction of those species have been domesticated.

For AJ Khan ‘23 , he has grown up with birds for the entirety of his life. Khan’s mother has “kept birds since before [Khan] was born.” His mother takes complete

care of them. She cleans their cages weekly, feeds and waters them daily, and sweeps the floor be neath their cage biweekly as well. Khan confides, “I call them my mom’s birds because I don’t like them. They always go ‘chirp chirp chirp.’”

These birds, Aus tralian zebra finches, “chirp” incessantly, ac

cording to Khan. They also live for a whop ping (in Khan’s opin ion) five to seven years. Additionally, these birds can multi ply if the owner doesn’t keep a stern watch on their behavior and status of their cage, “Usually, my mom cleans out the eggs [from the cage], but one time she for

got to and they turned into birds” says Khan.

For anyone con templating a bird pur chase, Khan warns, “It’s a waste of money. They make a mess. Although they don’t smell, their food does smell.” Khan’s final message for anyone seeking a bird is to “com mit to getting a ‘fun’ bird. Don’t get a ‘lame’ bird.”

Something many people here at

can

can

of

- Madison and many others already have. One way is to bring in

during

packed

While it doesn’t have

be a

in particular, studies have shown that petting an animal can reduce blood

heart

have even brought in

chickens, and minnie horses on some occasions. I asked around the student body to see if this is something that would help the community or provide yet another reason to procrastinate. Ethan Edinburgh ‘26 says, “Blake would be so much better with dogs for finals week. I think people would get a lot less stressed with dogs to help cheer people up. The only possible negative is it could be a little distracting.” Since anxiety is increasing across the nation at alarming rates it is inevitable that programs like these will become the new normal. Do you think Blake should get ahead of the curve?

Mirah

Australian zebra finches prove to be messy, difficult to watch for with abundance of eggs

From left to right on the bottom: Ferguson’s dog Wizard, Chopra’s dog Ozzie, and Pann’s dog Fozzy Bear. From top to bottom on the right: Sally Countryman ‘23’s two dogs, Jim (on top) and Dwight (on the bottom). Countryman states, “My dogs are named Jim and Dwight after the show “The Offce” and they’re both golden retrievers. They’re both really cute although Dwight can be a little weird sometimes, he always has to have this stuffed animal or something in his mouth, otherwise he’ll go crazy. Jim can be really annnoying to Dwight sometimes and he doesn’t really let people pet Dwight because he’ll just start jumping on Dwight because he wants the attention. Jim is almost two years old and Dwight is almost four.”

RELATIONSHIPS AND BENEFITS

Submitted by: Jack Griffn

and his older sister, have pet chickens. He experience raising chickens

It has been so cool little chicks to being getting eggs everyday.”

SMALL REPTILES MAKE FOR NI , LOVING PETS

Chloe Ursu | Contributing Writer

Lots of people have dogs or cats and some have rabbits or hamsters. But few have reptiles-- geckos, frogs, or toads-- and most people wouldn’t even see them as pets. Many reptile owners feel they’re over looked and that they ac tually make amazing pets, maybe even as good as cats or dogs.

ent, in the best way. Ches ter explains, “I already had a dog and I really wanted a smaller, like, reptile. I fell in love with reptiles cause they’re just so cool. And, like, they’re different.”

Submitted by: Jack Griffn

Ella Chester ‘24 recent ly got her second gecko, Clyde just before the sum mer, but has had her other, Rex, since she was 11. She’s had a dog for even longer, and has even had fish and turtles, but says that geckos are just differ

When asked about a favorite memory with each of her geckos, Chester rem inisces, “I have a photo of Rex. My gecko I’ve had for the longest sitting on my head when he was a baby. And then we retook that photo a couple years later and to see how both of us had grown so much was crazy.” Just like dogs or cats, you can develop re lationships with them, mak

ing them really special and unique pets. Chester states, “[Clyde’ll] fall asleep on my knee while I’m doing homework or watching a video or something. And sometimes if like a loud noise goes off on what I’m watching, he’ll just jump. And it’s really funny.”

Chester continues, “I love all animals, but I think I really like reptiles because I feel like they’re very misunderstood... and I feel like they’re actually giant sweethearts.” But not everybody sees them that way. Chester elaborates, “My mom actually is kind of terrified of them.”

Calmer pets, less commitment provide benefits for stress, easy to care for

Sonia Lerner | Contributing Writer

A

s one of the most popular domes ticated animals, cats clearly hold quali ties of a good pet.

Despite being hated by die-hard dog lovers, cats are indeed great pets to have, according to Genevieve Gellerman

First and fore

most, cats are great pets if you’re looking for a more lowkey animal that is still larger in size. Gellerman, who has two cats named Marco and Polo, says that “cats can be left alone more, they’re more indepen dent,” making them

easier to coexist with than dogs, for exam ple. Higuchi, who’s cat is named Zero, agreed, stating, “they aren’t as clingy or as active as dogs,” making them a lot easier to take care of.

Additionally, cats help soothe stress

ubmitte

and can support mental health struggles. Higu chi adds that “just be ing able to pet them helps a lot with men tal health and stress.”

Furthermore, Geller man notes that her cats help her when in need of a quick reset, elab

orating, “When I need a study break for like five minutes, I’ll just go and sit with my cats and hangout with them.”

CATS PROVIDE NEEDED COMFORT, DAILY RELIEF ‘24 and Hakuto Higuchi ‘24 . From being chill housemates to reliev ing stress and helping support mental health struggles, cats are over all a great choice for a pet if you’re looking for a mellow companion.

Overall, cats are a great option for anyone who wants a loving pet, but dreads the high commitment.

Marco, and Gellerman’s second cat Polo. Hakuto Higuchi’s older sister, Suzy Higuchi ‘23, remarks, “My cat is really cute and he’s fve years old. He’s a king.”

Geckos may seem scary, intimidating, yet they’re surprisingly caring

The two above pictures depict Rex (on top) and Clyde (on the bot tom), both Chester’s pets. Clyde crawls around in his enclosure that mimicks geckos’ natural habitats, which are typically warm and rocky.

by : E l l a Chtsere

by: Geneviev

Julia Zhang

SPOT

Be Real App Changes Purpose, Attitude of Social Media

Mixed opinions regarding unique new app

Charlee Jones | Contributing Writer

BeReal has very quick ly gained traction among young people, cur rently topping the social networking charts in the apple store. BeReal is a new social media app that was released in 2020 but started gaining popularity early this year, and has since been downloaded over 25 million times worldwide. BeReal en courages its users to show their authentic selves on line. At a random time everyday a notification is sent out informing you that “It’s time to BeRe al.” You will then have two minutes to capture a photo from both your

front and back camera that showcases what you are doing in that moment.

Despite its popular ity, many people seem to have mixed feelings about the app. Charley Bowles ‘26 said that she appreci ated the idea of showing your true self online but that “it doesn’t really mat ter because people don’t post on time anyways.”

This refers to how it has become commonplace for people to wait until they are doing something in teresting to post their Be Real instead of just post ing themselves watching netflix or studying.

Shoumili Tarafder

‘25 claims that she thinks BeReal feels “unique” from other social media, and that she “like[s] be ing able to see what [her] friends are doing even if it is something boring.”

While people may have

differing opinions about BeReal, there is no deny ing its prevalence in pop culture today.

A main contrib uting factor to BeReal’s success is its promotion of “being real,” hence the

name of the app. There seem to be two main stances that students take on this online realness. A

large portion support the movement towards mak ing social media feel more genuine. Sinclar Christie

‘26 believes the overly edited, filtered highlight reels that traditional social media provides can be “damaging” and can lead users to compare them selves in negative ways. However some people be lieve that social media is fine the way it is and that oversharing online is the real problem at hand. Everything that is posted on the internet is perma nent, and some people be lieve that it is better to be safe than sorry. Mean ing that they prefer to keep their personal life to themselves and not post their day to day life on social media. So, whether you love it or hate it, it is clear that BeReal has made its mark on all of us.

Complex Rain Garden Often Overlooked

Environmental benefits, compli cated ecosystem go unseen by student body

Charlotte Opp | Creative Director

Just outside of the West Entrance is a beautiful rain garden full of colorful flow ers and plants. Although not many students may know about its environ mental importance, stu dents who took Envi ronmental Science know it inside out.

Greta Wattson ‘23 states, “The purpose of a rain garden is that it reduces runoff by filter

ing out pollutants and it provides food and shel ter to insects and other wildlife.” This rain gar

ful and natural garden that requires very low maintenance.

For the class, Watt

rain garden by saying, “I want to make the rain garden a more interpretive place for

Climate Change Affects Autumn

Colorful leaves fall sooner, before season begins

Ahan Devgun | Staff Writer

From the seasonal drinks to the color ful leaves that explode in shades of orange and red, autumn has always brought much needed va riety to the change of seasons. However, be cause of climate change, fall has gotten warmer

only 0-10% of trees that have changed colors.

However, it’s not just temperature that is caus ing this change in fall foliage. A lack of pre cipitation and increased infestations also play a role, but climate change heavily exacerbates these issues. In addition, delays in fall weather also inter rupt cycles of growth that trees go through, and they are not able to store car bon at the same rate.

As warm temperatures stay longer and spring begins earlier, tree foli age are experiencing long

By venturing out to the West Entrance and observing the rain garden you can im merse yourself in a diverse and rich environment of plants. Further information is also available on the placard the garden.

den has proven to be useful as well as aes thetically pleasing. In sects and bees are al ways busy pollinating these colorful flowers outside of the science wing.

Ella Chester ‘24 brings forward a special feature of rain gardens by explaining, “There’s almost like a back river behind the rain garden so that when it rains, it collects the water and keeps the soil moist for the plants.” The best part about this feature is that the flowers don’t need to be watered and even in long periods of time without rain the plants will stay hydrated. This allows for a beauti

son and her classmates planted a total of twenty one plants in the rain garden, all of which are native to Minnesota. Some of these plants include the coneflow ers, milkweed, prairie sunflowers, along with many others. The class then created signs next to the different kinds of plants which include a QR code that you can scan with your phone to learn more about the plant. Not many stu dents know about the rain garden so this is a perfect tool for stu dents and faculty to use to investigate these wild landscapes.

Will Bohrnsen ex plains his hopes for the

people where they can learn about the plants by using the signs and the QR codes.”

Chester also ex presses her hopes for the rain garden by stating, “I feel like it looks really messy and it doesn’t look like normal land scaping. I mean, I think that it would be easy to walk past and just think that there are a bunch of weeds and untamed plants, but in reality all those plants have a purpose by sup porting local pollina tors and saving water. They do a lot more good than the average plant would.”

over the years. Because of this warmth, the changing of the leaves has been behind, and the leaves have been chang ing later and later. Ac cording to a study done by George Mason Uni versity, the appearance of fall colors has been pushed back by over a month since the 19th century. In Minnesota, two weeks before this article was published, most of the state has

growing periods wwith shorter times between the cold months and warm months, making fall shorter. Climate change affecting trees also then affects the environment in turn, as forests absorb 30% of all carbon emis sions, and as the trees are getting less and less time to absorb the nutri ents from the leaves, this may decrease the ability of forests to absorb car bon dioxide.

Amelia Bush

Lauren Mohan ‘25 Tia Gnanapragasam ‘25, and Anna Tao ‘25 pause in the hallway to take their daily Be Real. Similar occurences have become a common sight throughout school.

Charlotte Opp

Though the plants in the rain garden may seem uncoordinated at frst glance, they each play an important role in the ecosystem.

Melody Lee

Charlotte Opp

Sonia Lerner | Contributing Writer

The movie adapta tion of “Where The Crawdads Sing,” starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith, hit theaters mid-July. Critics say that Edgar-Jones fell short in terms of doing justice to main character Kya, and I agree, but would still highly rec ommend the film none theless.

The movie opens with Catherine Danielle

Clark, more commonly known as Kya, being named as the top sus pect for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, Chase Andrews. As she awaits trial after being arrest ed, the movie reveals her difficult upbringing in the marshlands of North Carolina through flashbacks. After watch ing her family slowly abandon her, she takes up spending time in the marsh, and while doing so befriends and eventu ally dates Tate Walker, a friend of her older brother.

However, her happi ness doesn’t last long as Tate goes off to college, leaving Kya with only a

list of publishers, urging her to publish her draw ings and studies of the marsh.

Kya later engages in a romantic relation ship with Chase An drews, but after going on a trip to meet her publisher, she returns to find Chase dead and her at the top of the suspect list. Kya is put through trial and is found not guilty. She gets back to gether with Tate and the two grow old together.

The movie ends with Tate looking through Kya’s things following her death, and finds Chase’s shell necklace, a missing piece of evi dence from the crime

scene, proving that she killed him after all.

I read the book “Where The Crawdads Sing,” by Deliah Ow ens, and was overall im pressed with the film’s take on it. The book took more care in prov ing Kya’s innocence and making the viewer root for her not guilty ver dict so that the reveal of her guilt is an even big ger surprise. The lack of such in the movie weak ened the plot twist for me, taking away from the overall impression of Kya’s character. How ever, the movie was so visually appealing that I almost couldn’t be mad about the plot’s decline,

as I was mesmerized by the set with every new scene.

‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ Soars, Excites Audience Newman combines mystery and ro mance in movie

Throughout the movie, I loved watch ing Kya and Tate’s re lationship unfold, and felt that them ending up together was the happy ending I needed after finding out that Kya got away with murder. Their friendship begins as they exchange feath ers from various birds over the course of a few weeks without ever see ing each other, which I felt added to the genuin ity of their relationship, as they didn’t even need to know what the other looked like to develop a bond. Additionally,

Tate doesn’t resent Kya after learning that she murdered Chase, add ing to the strength of their relationship. I re ally appreciated how the writers kept their rela tionship as central and important to the film as they did, because it was one of my favorite parts of the book and I was so happy to see it play out on screen.

I highly recommend “Where The Crawdads Sing” to anyone. It was such a beautiful repre sentation of an aban doned life turned mean ingful, an adorable love story, and a attentiongrasping murder case all in one.

The Gym: Opportunity for Activity

Day of service unites lower, upper school students

seeing the other people in your group isn’t the same, since it has not been very long.

Legacy Day: Created for Community Steven Cao & Tarun Gopalakrishnan | Contributing Writers

W

ith Legacy Day around the corner, its return has sparked many mixed emotions around the community.

This year’s Lega cy Day feels different than most years, due to the fact that last year’s Legacy Day occurred just last spring. Since we had Legacy Day so recently, the novelty of

Among upperclass men, there are many negative emotions around Legacy Day. Some stu dents express the con cern of the boredom of the day, thinking that the activities are not very engaging. Many students seem to think the activi ties of Legacy Day are repetitive and boring. Some upperclassmen be lieve that Legacy Day is not a productive use of their time, as they would rather spend their time doing other things, wheth er it is school work or extracurricular activities.

On the other hand, a main attraction for the day for many students is being able to hang out with students of the other age groups, learn ing about the others and seeing them change ev ery year. Many students also think that the activ ities are a great way to spread positivity while actively helping the community.

Legacy Day is a great way for students of younger ages to inter act with older students. Lower schoolers have never or rarely interact ed with upperclassmen before, so Legacy Day is a great opportunity to meet new people.

Open gym would allow students to be active

Kaining Zhang | Contributing Writer

The gym is off-limits during lunch blocks and there have been questions about why this is the case and wheth er it will open. Some people may think that the gym is unavailable to students because of some big reason. How ever, Upper School Di rector, Joe Ruggerio, claims that if students could find an adult who is willing to be down there, the gym could be open during the school day. If supervision re ally is the only issue, how come it hasn’t been acted upon yet?

Colorado Univer sity says that any sort of movement during the day helps to reduce stress and gives us a break from the challeng es we face during the day. This can be very beneficial, especially for high school students who have to sit in a classroom for long pe riods of time throughout

the day.

According to Rug gerio, a few years ago when the gym was available, there was an incident where there wasn’t an adult in the gym and some students went in and damaged the property. Thus, the gym was made unavail able. We definitely don’t want something like this to happen ever again, but if we can make it so that there’s always an adult in the gym, then students can come and go freely. There should be at least a few teach ers and staff willing to stay and watch during the lunch block.

Our lunch block is

35 minutes long, which is more than enough time to eat lunch and do something productive after that. Sure, a lot of times this block is useful for studying, but there’s already plenty of time for that during free blocks. Also, it is possible that students won’t have anything to work on and will need something to do with their friends. With the gym open, there will be another option for stu dents to move around instead of staying on their phones or studying in the library, especially in the winter, where the courtyard won’t be a choice anymore.

Melody Lee

Ali Hecker

Sofa Perlman

While upperclassmen remain frustrated considering Legacy Day just occured last sprirng, the day offers an opportunity for connection across age groups in the community.

This sign on the door of the gym prohibits students from mak ing using of the space. Many students feel that utilizing the gym would be benifcial as there is free time during the day.

THE STAFF

I t’s time to BeReal!

There’s a new social media app that teens and young adults are obsessed with. This app was designed for people to show an authentic unedited photo from their everyday life. BeReal sends one notification at a different time everyday and people have two min utes to post their photo in time, otherwise their BeReal is late. There are people who will wait to post their BeReal until they’re doing something fun or hanging out with friends to make them selves seem super cool.

On the app there is an expectation to post because otherwise you can’t see your other friends’ posts.

As a staff, we be lieve that there is a sense of camaraderie on the app. For example, BeReal went off recently at around 8:00 p.m. on a school night, and many people were doing the same thing that night, at home working on home work. The app in a way has brought people to gether and made people feel less alone because it makes you realize your

BeReal Provides Less Toxic Social Media

typical week night is not much different then someone else that is your age. Thus, the app is low pressure. However, BeReal has the capac ity to become inauthen tic with some waiting for fun moments to post. The late notice that your friends get helps prevent this. Be Real does how ever, make the pictures themselves more authen tic because there are no filters. The amount of retakes taken is also vis ible, which helps elimi nate the toxicity some apps like Instagram have. Instagram allows the user to sort through countless pictures to find the one perfect one, with BeReal, this isn’t an op tion. The intention and execution of the app is what makes it so special, there isn’t an endless scroll and there are no “likes”, this gets rid of the addictive parts most other social medias have.

The nice thing about BeReal is you don’t leave a digital footprint, which is partly why this app, according to the staff, doesn’t feel very much like social media. While you can look through

your old memories, you won’t be held to them for the entire world to see.

BeReal is some thing that you can’t be famous for, your posts are only shared with you and your friends. Our advice to the community is, If you’re not on the train don’t even bother. This means if you don’t have BeReal don’t feel pressure to download it, you’re not missing out on anything. This is an app where you can post a picture at a random time of the day and see your friends and their posts of what they’re doing.

BeReal provides a form of social media very different from In stagram, TikTok, Snap chat, and other popular social media. The user is unable to view their friends BeReal posts un til they post their own. BeReal doesn’t use algo rithms or advertisements to try and keep it’s users on the app. BeReal is what you make of it. If you want to use it you can, but there is little pressure to join the me dia platform.

Room For Service Encouragement

Lacking service goals, engage more students in their commu

Will Mairs | Contributing Writer

As the school year starts up and ev eryone settles into their classes and new hectic schedules, it seems like the topic of volunteer work should be at the back of our minds. I hope that as you read this article, you can un derstand not only the value of volunteering but also why Blake should help students get into volunteering by requiring volunteering hours.

While Blake as a school provides oppor tunities to give back to the community, there is no requirement for ser vice work. There are ac tually some really great clubs and programs at Blake that are primar ily focused on service such as Habitat for Hu manity which helps pro vide homes for families in need and the Unified School Committee which helps provide athletic and social events for

students with or without disabilities while creating a more inclusive environ ment inside and outside of Blake. Participation in these clubs is completely voluntary and on the sur face there does not seem to be that much of an incentive to join other than putting it on your college app. However, I believe (and I feel that many other people share this sentiment) that the experience of volunteer ing is incredibly fulfill ing and valuable as what we do as volunteers goes far beyond just the Blake campus.

Other private schools seem to share this belief as schools like Breck have a service requirement of

20 hours over a 4 year period. While this may seem like a very small amount, I believe that this is a perfect amount for any prospective student. Having a small require ment allows students to get their foot in the door in volunteer work and find out for themselves why volunteering is such an important experience.

While this may seem like a relatively small is sue, I encourage everyone to strongly consider how volunteering not only af fects them but also the world around them. The more people we have volunteering, the better not only Blake will be, but also the community around us.

Hold Qatar Accountable, Unft to Host Fifa World Cup

Ethan Klaiman | Contrib uting Writer

Q

atar, the world’s third richest coun try, is a beautiful tour ist destination filled with extravagant lighting and gorgeous architecture. A country known for its Souq Waqif, a market which is made of vari ous traditional goods. A country known for its beautiful Villagio Mall, which serves as an in credible place for a lei surely hangout. A country known for being incred ibly accepting, as evi dent by being made up of over 85% non-Qatari people. A country which has, according to The Guardian, “hundreds of thousands of [migrant] workers”making “$1.25 or less” an hour is unfit to host the consistently record-breaking televised event this coming No vember, the Fifa World Cup.

The Fifa World Cup, an event that is tradition ally held in June and

July, cannot be due to a scandal that involves Qa tar bribing Fifa with an absurd amount of money. The scandal provides the necessity of changing the time due to the fact that in Qatar, summers would provide dangerous levels of heat. The temperature levels(anywhere from 95115°F) during the sum mer would jeopardize the safety of the play ers. This breaking of the traditional timing creates a dilemma for an aver age fan. The World Cup, an event that continues to have record-breaking viewers (whether through being televised or view ership in person) due to it being summer, is ex

pected to drop in view ership. Since the world cup is traditionally held in summer, many more people can watch it or attend it due to availabil ity from school. Not only this, but since the event is in November, it would also interfere with club season, so leagues had to reshape their schedules so their players could rep resent their country in the World Cup. All be cause of a country’s self ish method in acquiring an internationally massive event.

Qatar is currently under the limelight for evidence supporting the fact that they bribed Fifa with anywhere from $1

million - $15 million. Not only is it bad that Qatar wrongfully was voted to host the world cup, but the country is unfit for three major reasons. First off the issues due to the changing of the timing of the event from summer to November. Second, there are many allega tions made against Qa tar’s Kafala system that it allows migrant work ers to be systematically abused. Even though the Kafala system has since been abolished, a contract system has since been put in place that still does not protect their workers. Workers cannot change jobs or leave the country without permission from

their sponsors, which makes it impossible for migrant workers to at tempt to make their own lives, especially by being paid as little as they are. These workers have been crucial in the construc tion of hotels, stadiums

and other things neces sary for a World Cup, so the World Cup hap pening in quitar is only possible because of mi grant workers that have been working in condi tions that violate Human Rights laws. Finally, the country of Qatar has laws in place that provide jail time for members of the LGBTQIA+ community that would require mem bers to serve seven years of jail time, thus prevent ing soccer fans who be long to the LGBTQIA+ community from attend ing the event, let alone living or even thinking about ever going to the country.

All of these things combine to construct a country that is extreme ly unfit for hosting the internationally record breaking event, the Fifa World Cup.

Corrupt Fifa World Cup hosts, unvieled with repeated Qatar incidents

Julia Zhang

Julia Zhang

Academic Honesty in the Classroom

Academic Honesty Policy Serves Students, Focus of the Future

Administrators make plans, bet ter inform frus trated students

Sam Tomczick | News Editor

Academic honesty re mains one of Blake’s core values, however, many students believe that ad herence is often lacking. Blake’s Family Handbook, promotes academic honesty as students submitting their

best independent work. It lists possible violations of academic honesty as, “pla giarism, giving or receiving assistance during a test, in appropriate collaborations on a report, project or home work and giving details of a test to another student before that student has taken it.”

Reinforcing this, Gourav Kumar ‘24 defines academ ic honesty as, “abiding with the rules that Blake posts in their handbook, such as no plagiarism in any cases and just truthfulness in general when it comes to assign ments.” Kumar is a member

of the CJB, Blake’s Com munity Judiciary Board, which is tasked with re sponding to violations of academic honesty. Though he believes that, “almost ev ery Blake student here has a deep understanding of aca demic honesty.” Kumar still recognizes how often the CJB has to review cases of academic dishonesty. How ever, Kumar doesn’t blame this on a misunderstanding of what academic honesty is as he notes, “it just depends on how serious you want to take it. Quickly going to SparkNotes or whatever, that

is a big violation to a lot of teachers. If you told your teacher they would be like, ‘Woah you can’t do that,’ but students are a lot more passive about it especially when they can get away with it often.” Nora Ibra ni ‘26, agrees, adding that, “It’s a lot easier to ‘cheat’ [at Blake], but I would defi nitely say that they’re testing you with that.”

Sarah Warren, the new Upper School As sistant Director and head of the CJB, is hoping to combat academic dishon esty. She explains, “Studies

have shown that academic integrity is a value that needs to be taught. [Many students] don’t think it’s a big deal because there’s no one enforcing it.” However, many teachers already aim to teach academic honesty as well as examine their students work for academic dishonesty. As Pachao Ya jcherthao describes, “I ex plain to the students any work they have to do has to be their own. When students hand in work I can see if there is academic dishonesty or not. If there is, I would go over it with the student,

and provide more guidance about how to remain aca demically honest.”

In addition, Warren wants to continue themes of aca demic honesty by focus ing on it during assembly and advisory time. “If we help you to understand why it’s important to keep your academic integrity, and then enforce that, I think you all would take it more se riously.” Warren hopes that with these extra reminders, “students can be able to demonstrate their learning, so teachers can provide the appropriate feedback.”

If you could change one thing about the Academic Honesty Policy what would you change?

“I wish the punishments for academic dishonesty were more clear. I know that if there are issues they are sent to CJB, but it seems to be situational and I wish I knew more.”

“More clear guidelines on what and what isn’t aca demic honesty. What’s the line between working on homework with friends, having them read over a paper, and asking them to edit your mistakes. I don’t think there’s clear communication between what is allowed and what’s not.”

“Collaborating with other students on formative assignments shouldn’t be considered academic dis honesty.”

Honesty Policy Sets Clear Guidelines

Policies set clear boundaries, con tribute to learn ing environment

Allyson Jay | In-Depth Editor

Blake’s academic policies have long been integrat ed into our four core values: respect, love of learning, in tegrity, and courage. The ac ademic honesty policies are the foundation of our mission and values - they’re clearly conveyed through teachers, administrators, and The Fam ily Handbook yet have un deniably sparked controversy among the student body.

Many students be lieve that these policies are confusing, but with all the resources and access to them, they’re pretty straight forward. Daphne Dresner ‘24 says, “I think the way that they’re outlined in The Blake Family Handbook and then the way teachers define their own rules, they’re made pretty clear to the students.”

At the beginning of each year, teachers typically

assign students to read their syllabus, where their policies can be found. Steve Kaback adds, “I do think there’s a lot of variation [about academic policies] in departments, classes within departments, and even among teachers that teach the same class…It often times isn’t ever going to be uniform everywhere.” Although there may be slight differences in these policies within various classrooms, in my experience, they’ve always been clear-cut and simple enough to understand. Dresner mentions, “I think most kids understand what cheating is or isn’t, it’s pretty self explanatory.”

All classes have the clear expectation that

students are being academi cally honest throughout the entire year, although many students become gradually forgetful of these policies.

Kaback explains, “I think [honesty policies are] con veyed in the syllabus which no one looks at, or a teacher makes an announcement at the beginning of the year, and then we kind of forget about it.” The main issue is not the clarity of the rules; it’s the matter of enforcing and retaining these policies when students become more and more lenient with them. Teachers play a huge role in enforcement, and as Dresner puts it, students should “keep [the policies] in mind throughout the whole year, not just at the beginning when they read the syllabus for a homework assignment.”

Despite the claims that the academic honesty policies are ambiguous or unclear, there is an evident implication and expectation that students remain honest with their work and in their classes. The tacit understand ing is distinct - students may just need to be reminded of it more often.

Policy Creates Unclear Guidelines

Cleo Kilpatrick | Photo Editor

Fall marks when teach ers review their syllabi and expectations for the year, including the Academic Honesty Policy. The Blake Family Handbook states, “Students should not rely in appropriately on the help of tutors, parents, classmates or commercially prepared study aids. Reading SparkNotes, Cliff Notes or other summa ries of literature instead of the texts assigned for class is a significant breach of our academic honesty expecta tions.” The referenced text is unclear. Dom Cornforth ‘24 agrees saying, “there was a blurb [that said] something like students should be sub mitting their own work and not receive help from adults because it’s all about fair ness to the students… in my mind it’s saying you can’t use tutors or any other adults

which is kinda flawed… let’s say you can’t meet with a teacher or understand some thing at home and a teacher won’t respond to emails right away…what [the policy is] saying to me is if you don’t understand something to be fair to others you should not receive outside help.” A question that arises is: does the policy change depending on the subject or level of work? Certain subjects use different resources, so how do we decide which resourc es aren’t okay?

For many students, in cluding myself, there’s been a point when I’ve been working on a homework question that I couldn’t fig ure out and used a resource

to help. I think utilizing re sources is more beneficial than being confused. Social studies teacher Dana Specht furthers, “For me the biggest priority is, as a teacher, to teach and …if there is an incident to take it as a learn ing opportunity.”

Furthermore, there is a distinction between being lazy and lacking knowledge. Specht gives an example, “If a brand new freshman comes in and they write a paper and they plagiarize something in it, they have no idea what they were sup posed to cite. That’s really different from a junior or senior that got lazy.”

The honesty policy is important and should be re spected. Conversely, if you disobey the policy it should be a learning experience. For example, if you are doing research for a paper or an essay that requires citation and you get lazy or lack citation knowledge and don’t ask for help, instead of be ing punished, there should be a conversation with your teacher to reflect and talk about what to do differently in the future.

Melody Lee

Unclear rules, harsh punish ment create con fusion

Class of 2026 Experiences Upper School

New school year means new faces walking the halls

Maddie Newhouse & Payton Smith | Contributing Writers

When the 2022 school year began, The Up per School gained a brand new group of kids into the build ing: the freshmen. The change can be frustrating, and peo ple usually don’t want to make adjustments. Sometimes the fresh men are standing in the middle of the hallway, or walking on the wrong side as they get to know their way around.

Until they are adjusted, which can take years, the fresh men cause a commo tion. We spent some time getting to know a few of the fresh men and inquired about how their high school beginnings have been, their re lationships with up perclassmen, favorite teachers and classes, and fun facts about themselves.

We spoke with Hayden Wert ‘26 , Nora Ibrani ‘26 , Soren Reyes ‘26 , Hamza Banatwala ‘26 , Svara Arimilli ‘26 , and James Lewis ‘26

In conversation about how she’s felt about the upper school so far, Wert responded saying, “it’s a lot differ ent than the middle school.” The other freshmen agreed and added on to how it was different. Arimilli stated “I’ve learned a lot more than I think I had in the middle school… There’s more free dom and less over sight, which is good as we’re becoming more responsible.”

Lewis had a similar reason not ing, the biggest dif ferences have been “freedom, and it’s

not as strict, and it’s up to you, and just more responsibility.”

When asked about their favorite teachers and classes, biology and Will Bohrnsen was the answer for four out of the six freshmen.

Ibrani stated that she likes [biol ogy] “even though it’s hard,” and that her favorite teacher is a tie between “either [Pat rick] Barry or Mr. Bohrnsen.” Lewis said “I have a really good class, and I have a lot of friends in it, and I like what we’re learning.”

Arimilli added, “it just makes sense” and that Bohrn sen is a great teach er because, “he’s pretty engaging.”

When Reyes spoke of his favorite teacher and class, he said, “I like printmak ing and the printmaking guy, [Bri an] Sago ,” while Wert said “prob ably World History with [Amanda] Pomerleau .” School lunch is of ten a topic of conver sation, so we inquired about a cou ple of the freshmen’s favorite lunches thus far. Arimilli responded, “it was very memo rable actually...chick en tenders, Caesar salad, and whatever

the cake was with the cream cheese frosting.”

Chicken tenders have been a fan fa vorite for a while now, so we weren’t too surprised to hear this difference from Arimilli. Lewis said his favorite lunch was “the chicken pesto.” Aware of his

really liked it.”

Each of the freshmen had similar things to say about experiences with the upperclassmen, most of which have been positive. Wert, Arimilli, and Lewis all correlated their posi tive expe

Ibrani shared that her experience with upperclassmen has also been posi tive adding to Lew is’ comment with “they’ve been per sonally nice to me,” but also “[I]can’t speak for the rest

school. When speak ing with Reyes about his free time, he said, “[I] probably go to Lifetime.”

Banatwala agreed with this and added, “[I like to] play basketball.”

Ibrani, Lewis and Arimilli both said they prefer to spend their free time “hanging out with friends.”

In addition to this, Lewis added that he also likes to spend his free time play ing soccer, similar to the response of Wert who says that she, “[doesn’t] have any free time” due to her commitment to sports during both the on and off sea son.

Keeping up with the theme of getting to know the freshmen outside of school, we were able to get some interest ing facts from them.

Banatwala shared that he’s lived in a lot of different countries such as Switzerland, Paki stan, Czech Repub lic, the U.S., and the U.A.E. He said his favorite was, “prob ably Switzerland, but then there’s the U.S. cause it’s you know, the U.S.” Lewis de scribed his music taste, sharing that he’s “a lover of jazz.”

James Lewis '26

differing opinion, he added, “it might not have been a really popular one, but I

Svara Arimilli '26

riences with upperclass men to their relationship with them in sports; Lewis said specifi cally “I know a lot of them, so they’re nice to me.”

of [my] grade.” We were glad to hear that the upperclass men have been wel coming the freshmen as well.

Just like other students in the upper school, the freshmen have lives outside of

The Class of 2026 is 135 students which is an average class size, but it feels as though they are everywhere because of it. Through get ting to know some of them a bit better, we realized that they aren’t all that bad. We encourage you to start a conversation with a freshmen if and when the oppor tunity arises. Who knows, you might find that you enjoy their company. That is, after all, how great friendships start.

Nora Ibrani '26

Hayden Wert '26

Hamza Banatwala '26

Soren Reyes

Cleo Kilpatrick

Cleo Kilpatrick

Cleo Kilpatrick

Cleo Kilpatrick

Cleo Kilpatrick

Cleo Kilpatrick

Seniors Construct k it Car

Unique summer project, lifelong accomplishment

Sofia Perlman | Sci-Tech Editor

Last spring, Charlie Weyerhaeuser ‘23 and Gunnar Johnson ‘23 decided to take on a co lossal project: building a car. Using a kit contain ing the frame for the car, and some parts from an old car, they embarked on a long journey. They jumped into the project head-first, ordering the kit before having a com plete plan for building the car. The main goal of the project is simply to learn, and have fun. Weyerhaeuser states, “We just want it to be as fun as possible. The point of this wasn’t to make the fastest or most incredible looking [car] or any of that, it was more just the fun factor.”

Weyerhaeuser ex plains that he has always been drawn to projects like this, stating, “I kind of came up with the idea

in about May last spring. I had just recently gotten into cars… I’ve always been a hobbyist. I like hobbies and putting a lot of effort and time into something and diving into something even if it doesn’t benefit me in

of the car is broken up into three different parts: getting the engine run ning, wheel suspension (connecting the wheel system to the car), then assembling the body panels and making final touches to the car.

ble. Recalling this strug gle, Weyerhaeuser says, “We had to drill out probably a dozen differ ent bolts…We just spent hours getting one piece out sometimes, because it was seized there. But, we got through it.”

pen that add a lot of time.” However, the two feel well prepared to work through any fu ture challenges that may come their way.

Weyerhaeuser points out one in particular, saying, “Being overly ambitious. It’s not a bad thing, but we originally thought we could prob ably get it done with in the summer. One of the biggest things with large projects especially is you’ve got to account for things to go wrong or you’re never going to even come close to meeting deadlines.”

any way besides fun… I have definitely always been interested in ma chines and cars in gen eral–I want to do engi neering of some sort for my career–I like adrena line, and combine those two together, well, you get a really cool car that you can build that’s also really fast.”

The official name of the car is a DF Goblin two frame mid engine rear wheel drive. After ordering the kit for the car, the next step was to find their donor car. Weyerhaeuser says that “pretty much everything was new to us. None of us had ever bought a car. None of us had re ally ever searched for a car to buy.”

After looking at a vast number of different options, Weyerhaeuser and Johnson selected a Chevy Cobalt SS as their donor car. Johnson drove to Wisconsin to pick up the car. The entire pro cess took around four weeks. They would use the transmission, engine, and drivetrain from the Chevy, and a new frame and chassis from the kit to build the final car.

Currently, the two have completely disas sembled the donor car, and recently painted the kit using a unique method called powdercoating. This entails negatively charging the part being painted, and positively charging the paint so that the pigment attracts to the metal and lays flat. Next, they will begin to build the car. The actual building

now, the two are about to begin the first stage of the building process. Once the car is com pleted, Weyerhaeuser and Johnson plan to make it street legal and able to drive on a track.

Regarding their time line for the project, Wey erhaeuser says, “We’re hoping we can get it done within about a month to a month and a half, at least before winter. An ambitious goal, very am bitious, would be around

October 11, because that’s the last track day of the year.”

The pro cess has not been with out its chal lenges. The donor car, in particular, has proved diffi cult since the rust that had built up on the car made it hard to disassemble.

Weyerhaeuser explains, “We live in one of the rust belt areas of the United States, with all of the salt dur ing the win ter, it builds up on cars.”

The most af fected area was the sus pension parts, since these are closest to the ground and therefore more vulnera

Searching for the right donor car also posed a challenge, as neither of them had ex perience with buying a car. The supply chain has also put a delay in their progress, causing the kit to take multiple months to arrive. Weyerhaeuser notes, “Building the kit, we could run into an in finite number of issues, the engine could be bad, transmission…things like that where we don’t ex pect but they could hap

Overall, the experi ence of building the car has been greatly positive, teaching them countless life lessons, as well as being a fun project with a useful outcome.

Weyerhaeuser says, “I thought that [the car] is cool, it’s really fast, a fun project, and it teaches me and my partners everything.” The two continue to work hard to meet their goal, while still keeping their priority of having fun in sight.

Fun Facts About Gunnar

Favorite color: Illusion blue Favorite breakfast food: Bagels

Best go-kart finishing posi tion: 1st

Top speed on racetrack: 140mph

Curbs hit : 1 Favorite car: Blue 2019 Honda Civic hatchback

“The point of this wasn’t to make the fastest or most incredible look ing [car] or any of that, it was more just the fun factor.” - Charlie Weyerhaeuser ‘23

Oscar Walsh

Oscar Walsh

Oscar Walsh

Oscar Walsh

Oscar Walsh