Globe Newsmagazine, February 2017, Issue 5, Vol. 88

issue 5, volume 88

S E PA R A T E and

U N EQUA L T h e c u r re n t v o l u n t a r y s t u d e n t t ra n s f e r p ro g ra m i n S t . L o u i s a n d t h e u n c e r t a i n f u t u re o f p u b l i c education in our city.

clayton high school, clayton, mo. - february 2017

Thank you to our sponsors!

The Globe is an entirely self-funded publication. We receive no funding from the school district for printing. Each issue of the Globe costs approximately $2000 to print. We are deeply grateful to our sponsors for their support of our publication. They make our work possible. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please email us at globe@claytonschools.net.

Issue Sponsors ($2000 Level): Gail Workman

Golden Greyhound Sponsors ($200+ Level): Anne and James Glowinsa-Fehr City of Clayton Nami Ramen TLC for Kids VolunTEENation The Gatter Family

The Williams Family Yan Zhang Dale Pediatrics Sarah Bernard Real Estate Orthodontic Consultants of St. Louis Centre Francophone at Webster U.

World Traveler Sponsors ($100 Level): Laura and Adam Ackerburg Autohaus BMW The Dersken Family LaVida Co MJ Loftus Michael Spear PQ Corporation The Su Family The Dubin Steinbaum Family The Goldstein Family The Tse Family The Joseph Family

The McGuire Family Jean Cheng The Brown Family The Cho Family The Youkilis Family The Kim Family The Althauser Krutzsch Family The Seraji Family The Sharma Khanna Family The Gallegos Family The LaGeese Stanton Family

Honorary Globie Sponsors ($50 Level): Ron Boeger Susie Brandenburg Ksemija Kos

Peter Goode Hrvoje Sikic Thos J. Spear

GLOBE 25

february 2017

F e at u re

14

Bridge of Hope

22

Mvstmind Muhammad

CHS graduate Muhammad Austin has a taken his musical talents into a career.

Separate and Unequal

The Globe explores the Voluntary Student Transfer Program in St. Louis in part three of the three part series: Separate and Unequal.

News

Sports 36

Winter Classic

Globe editors recount their experience at the 2017 Winter Classic at Busch Stadium.

10 Students Break Into Maryland School

CHS students face administrative and legal punishments for breaking into the Maryland School.

Review

40

12

Wicked Greenz

Opinion

Lyda Krewson

A profile on Lyda Krewson, who is running for Mayor of St. Louis this spring.

43

Clayton’s Civic Climate

44

Pro/Con: School and Social Media

CONTENTS 3

GLOBE editor-in-chief camille respess

chief managing editors kevin rosenthal ellie tomasson

managing editors noah brown nicholas lee mitali sharma max steinbaum

section editors madeline bale michael bernard daniel cho lucy cohen sean kim jacob lagesse zachary sorenson ashleigh williams tara williams

copy editors

charlie brennan harry rubin neel vallurupalli

webmaster nicholas lee

business manager

lucy cohen

photo editors alex gerchen

distribution editor grace monshausen

staff

editors

sophia barnes sophie bernstein lise derksen mariclare gatter olivia joseph nisha klein elise levy grace morris lauren praiss olivia reuter nikki seraji martin sharpe catherine walsh samantha zeid

reporters

madeline ackerburg sarah baker barrett bentzinger richard cheng daniel cohen theodore fehr leo gavitt beverly goode justin guilak katie he lucas hoffman cicely krutzch cody krutzch san kwon fiona mcguire kellan morrissey laura parvulescu katherine snelling grace snelling philip stahl sara stemmler junyi su lila taylor karena tse victor wei

photographers

synthia baer jennifer braverman daishanae crittenden ella engel sarah franzel akansha goel paige holmes catherine holtzman alivia jacobs xuenan jin areeba khan richard kuehn gabreille lask caroline marsden michael melinger grace monshausen mia redington alhan sayyed sarah schmidt claire schwarz eunice shin katherine sleckman emma weber

adviser

erin castellano

Professional Affilations: Sponsors of School Publications, Missouri Interscholastic Press Assocation, Missouri Journalism Education Assocation, National Scholastic Press Assocation, Columbia Scholastic Press Assocation

FROM THE EDITOR When I first entered the School District of Clayton -- with frizzy light brown hair, crooked teeth, skin like cinnamon -- I was faced with a whole lot of questions.

More than just the “getting to know you” questions about where I was from and what brought me to St. Louis, I soon felt interrogated by my fellow classmates.

Camille, do you take the bus to school?

Where do you live? In Clayton? In the City?

I answered these questions shyly and confused in the classroom, in the lunchroom, on the playground, in the bathrooms.

As a new student to the fourth grade at Glenridge Elementary, I had no idea what the significance of these inquiries were.

I had not learned the complexity of how the student population of the School District came to be.

It took me quite a long time to learn that my blackness -- by having a black mother and a white father -- could have allowed me to be part of the District through the Voluntary Student Transfer Program if I lived in the City.

This decades old program buses some black students from the City to some school districts in the county, such as Clayton.

I was not directly taught about the Voluntary Student Transfer (VST) program at new student orientation as a fourth grader at Glenridge, and I was not directly taught about the program in middle school, and I was not directly taught about the program at Clayton High School.

It was through interactions with my classmates, of all races, that allowed me to slowly put the pieces together.

I watched loads of black students unboard buses in my morning walks to Glenridge; I heard discussions between my

peers that cued me in on how the program worked; I noticed there were not many other black kids in my neighborhood in Clayton.

But the program was never something we candidly talked about in the classroom.

For the most part, black students came to Clayton on the buses, and almost everyone else came to school because that’s where they lived.

And that was that.

In this issue of the Globe, we are concluding our three-part series, “Separate and Unequal” which, in previous issues, has covered the legacy of racist housing policy in St. Louis and the history of race-based public educational access in St. Louis.

In this final installment, we look into the current status of the Voluntary Student Transfer program, its effects on families participating in it and the unknown future of St. Louis schools as the program comes to an end.

This program has been a fixture in St.

Louis public education for the past 34 years.

As the longest running race-based public student transfer program in America, it has a deeply rich and fascinating story; a story Globe has dedicated five months and three issues investigating not only as student journalists, but as individuals deeply curious about a program that is so close to this District and its students.

Not surprisingly, as I grew older in the District, questions about where I lived and how I was transported to school seemed to come to an end.

Part of me wishes they had not.

The questions I faced at 9-years-old, however uncomfortable they made me, inspired conversation and inquiry around not only the VST program, but the immense diversity in this District, diversity that our District should be harnessing and using as a way to shape its community into a more socially cognizant, compassionate and empathetic body of learners, educators and leaders.

Camille Respess, Editor-in-Chief

The Globe Newsmagazine exists to inform, entertain, persuade and represent the student voice at CHS. All content decisions are made by the student editorial staff and the Globe is an entirely self-funded publication. Not every story that our reporters write is published in the print newsmagazines. Visit www.chsglobe.com for additional stories and photos and for more information about the Globe itself. We reserve the right to refuse any advertisement - for more information about advertising and subscriptions, please contact our office: Clayton High School Globe 1 Mark Twain Circle Clayton, MO 63105 (314) 854-6668

EDITOR’S NOTE 5

Senior Seth George visits the ARoS Kunstmuseum during his year in Denmark.

PA N O R A M A Quarterback Zach Louis looks to looks to complete a pass in the Greyhound's season opener versus Lutheran North. The Greyhounds lost the match.

Photo by Alex Gerchen

PA N O R A M A JUNIOR SAM HUMPHREYS SKATES WITH THE PUCK AT THE GREYHOUNDS VARSITY HOCKEY MATCH AGAINST NORTHWEST ON DEC. 2. THE HOUNDS LOST THE GAME 4-6.

Photo by Mia Redington

NEWS Polinsky Strings in the New Year CHS senior Hava Polinksy made her professional solo debut at the St. Louis Symphony’s annual New Year’s concert on Dec. 31, 2016.

The 17-year-old violinist played Ziguenerweisen, Op. 20 with the St. Louis Symphony under the direction of David Robertson for a sold-out audience at Powell Hall.

Polinsky is the first teenage soloist to play with the professional symphony at this yearly event.

She is in her third season as co-concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Obama Farewell President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama waves to the audience after giving his farewell speech at Ten days before the expiration of his secMcCormick Place on Jan, 10, 2017 in Chicago, IL. (Ting ond term, President Obama delivered his Shen/Xinhua/Zuma Press/TNS) Farewell Address in his hometown of Chi-

NEWS

and notes

Trump Cabinet Donald Trump’s presidential cabinet is beginning to take shape. Despite his campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” several of his appointees are Washington insiders and wealthy businessmen with connections to Wall Street.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has ignited controversy. The former chief executive at ExxonMobil has personal connections with Vladimir Putin, even receiving the Russian Order of Friendship from the Moscow strongman. The lead up to Trump’s presidential inauguration is also being largely colored by suspicion of possible collaboration between Putin and the Trump campaign during the 2016 race. Other nominees for cabinet positions include Jeff Sessions (attorney general), John F. Kelly (homeland security secretary), Elaine L. Chao (transportation secretary), James N. Mattis (defense secretary), Ben Carson (secretary of housing and urban development), Mike Pompeo (CIA director), Ryan Zinke (interior secretary) and Scott Pruitt (EPA administrator).

BY MAX STEINBAUM/ managing editor NEWS 8

cago on Jan. 10.

Although President-elect Trump was only mentioned once, Obama frequently alluded to his successor. “Democracy can buckle when it gives in to fear,” he told the crowd.

Obama also discussed the accomplishments of his eight-year presidency, outlining what he believes will define his legacy.

Winter Classic On Jan 2, the St. Louis Blues hosted rival Chicago Blackhawks at Busch Stadium in the Winter Classic. Over 46,000 fans packed into Busch stadium to see the game, and the sellout crowd was treated to a convincing 4-1 victory. Vladimir Tarasenko, Blues star right winger, assured a win for the Note by lighting the lamp twice in the third period to bury the Hawks. The ninth Winter Classic was the first in which the Blues participated. The Blackhawks have played in three of the nine Classics, losing every time.

NEWS

Chapman Construction

BY GRACE MORRIS / page editor

Renderings for the Chapman Plaza (Photo from Barry Wehmiller).

As a child growing up in Ferguson, Bob Chapman, chairman and CEO of Barry Wehmiller, would come to Clayton when he wanted a nice day.

This image of Clayton being a nice place has stuck with him to this day and inspired him to contribute to the further beautification of Shaw Park.

While construction only recently began on the north end of Shaw Park, the plan originated in late 2012, at a meeting with Chapman to discuss his interest in contributing to the Clayton Century Foundation.

It was at this meeting where Chapman expressed his desire to improve the north end of Shaw Park.

According to Patty DeForrest, the director of Parks and Recreations for the City of Clayton, “our vision was to create a one of a kind park feature that reflected the City’s distinctive style while inviting resident, corporate citizens and visitor to come into Shaw Park and enjoy the experience offered through the creation of Chapman Plaza and Gardens.”

This park feature will contain a plaza at street level, which will include gardens, a

fountain, trellis colonnades, benches and improved crosswalks at the busy intersection of Forsyth Boulevard and Brentwood Boulevard.

This project would not have been possible without the $7 million donation Chapman made to the Clayton Century Foundation. Chapman was inspired to make this contribution to the city due to his connections with the city’s past.

“I had seen, as a child, Forest Park deteriorate and I saw the Forest Park Forever effort about 10 or 15 years ago with the idea of restoring the park to its natural beauty,” Chapman said. “I saw the park become a vibrant part of the life of many people and so when I was approached about Shaw Park, I had been inspired by what had happened to Forest Park. I challenged the people: how can we be as thoughtful in the renovation of Shaw Park as they were in the renovation of Forest Park?”

Chapman wanted to be able to invite people into the park, and have it be a place where people can sit and enjoy the sound

NEWS 9

and beauty of a water fountain.

“The idea of the Plaza was to be a stimulant to the development of Shaw Park for the benefit of everybody who participates in the Clayton community,” Chapman said.

DeForrest shares similar hopes for Chapman Plaza.

“It is my belief that this project will transform the northern end of Shaw Park, creating not only an aesthetically beautiful plaza for all to enjoy, but also serve as a destination for workday lunches and family picnics,” DeForrest said. “Parks serves as one of the best way for people to enjoy nature and get away from the stress of everyday life; my hope would be that Chapman Plaza becomes everyone’s favorite location to do just that.”

The construction of Chapman Plaza is not just a project, but rather a vision for the citizens of Clayton to enjoy the beauty of their surroundings.

As DeForrest said, “not only do the people love their parks, but they are also more than willing to support them. This is not something I take for granted and this project is certainly an incredible example of that support.”

MARYLAND

CHS students have been breaking into the Maryland School.

BY MICHAEL BERNARD with JACOB LAGESSE “We had seen a window, and I had a slingshot with me,” David* said. “I was like, ‘Hey, the window looks weak enough. Might as well try and hit it.’ I wasn’t expecting to get in, but the window shattered.”

David, a CHS student, first entered Maryland School, a property owned by the School District, with three other students in August of 2016 with the help of a rock.

However, David was not completely successful in his attempt to break into the school.

As he did not break the window completely, David was forced to finish the job with the own hand.

“When I started to pull down on the top shard of glass, the top piece released itself which resulted with me slamming my bare forearm onto the bottom shard. My arm began to bleed profusely so I ran to a friends house to close the wound and stop the bleeding,” David said. “I came back to the window 30 minutes later, kicked out the last shard, and I finally had a hole big enough for me to crawl in through.”

Before the initial break-in, the group would often hang out outside the 1930s brick building.

“We were able to see through the windows that there was stuff in there,” David said. “We were wondering what was inside there.”

Karl*, another CHS student, was one of the first students to enter the vacant school.

The three acre lot that is situated on Maryland Avenue is home to a dried-up garden, a dirt soccer field, a crumbling concrete parking lot usually occupied by amateur fireworks shows on weekends and a red brick three-story building; all currently owned by the Clayton School District.

“They had a lot of different TVs and chairs there, and tons of empty rooms. And some air conditioning units,” Karl said. “We went inside and took a TV and DVD player and took it up to a room. We hooked it up.”

The students also brought a foldable table, chairs and a fake plant. Soon enough, Karl and his buddies had transformed Maryland school into their very own hangout spot. Despite the three floors to themselves, the group was put off by dirt-covered floors and furniture. However, the group

continued to roam the halls of the timeworn building.

Inside the gated hangout spot lived aged treasures such as televisions and a grandfather clock.

Even though the students were fully aware that they were trespassing, they did not believe an authoritative threat loomed above them.

“At first we were a lot louder. [We were] screaming, yelling, super excited [and] running down the halls,” Karl said.

George*, another CHS student, heard about thrill and decided to join them.

“I [had] nothing better to do,” George said. “I thought it was a bad idea, but I didn’t realize that it could lead to bad consequences.”

The group eventually became aware of the potential consequences that would come from this adventure. To ensure their safety from the Clayton Police Department, the group, which now included members from other schools, put in place a rule in which they had to follow.

“We had a rule that no one went in during the day, only at night,” Trevor*, a CHS student, said.

Unlike some of the other members of the growing group, Trevor was aware from the initial break-in that shattering consequences could arise. If he suspected that the police were near the building, he would immediately leave the premises. However, the precautions set in place were not enough to protect the group.

According to David, a few of these students were forced to spend a day in inschool suspension due to their actions. Unbeknownst to some members of the group, the students were actually trespassing on private property.

“It makes me upset,” David said. “We are getting in trouble for being on private

*Names changed to protect identities.

NEWS 10

property, but there were no signs anywhere around Maryland.”

Eventually, after going to the hangout spot to unwind after a day of school, multiple students were seen on cameras by the Clayton Police Department.

“We were caught by the police after someone called 911 because they saw us inside the building,” David said.

David and an additional student left their backpacks outside of the school as they entered their secret hideout. The students suspected that their fun was over when police car after police car arrived on the scene.

“After an hour of being stuck in the school, I called a friend who lived nearby to tell me what was happening outside and to get our backpacks back, and he told me that there were 10 cop cars surrounding the building. [He said] that the police had already taken our backpacks and that there was nothing he could do,” David said. “We decided the best thing to do was to wait it out and wait for the police to leave.”

Eventually, the police left the scene, and David was able to escape from the school.

“I was halfway to my apartment building when two squad cars pulled onto the sidewalk I was walking on,” David said. “They got out of their vehicles and asked me what I was doing and where I was coming from, so I told them that I was walking back home from a friend’s house. They didn’t fall for it, so they asked for me and my friend who I was walking with to step into the back of the vehicle.”

Luckily, the officer only took the student back to his apartment to talk to his parents.

David believes that if his backpack was not left outside the building, he would have been able to remain free from trouble. David was relieved when the police informed him that the only punishment they would receive would be from the School District of Clayton.

According to Officer John Zlatic, the Student Resource Officer (SRO) at Clayton High School, the penalty for trespassing and burglary on private property could be a criminal arrest, a fine, probation, incarceration or restitution. The school district the students attend also has the capability to

BREAK-INS punish the students as they wish.

“I have no voice to school discipline and the school only has a voice if they are the victim of the crime and desire prosecution,” Zlatic said. However, the school does not have the first say in the altercation.

“Criminal acts such as trespassing [or] theft are handled initially by the police department, in which I would be the police representative for the school district,” Zlatic said. “Criminal acts then proceed through the criminal justice system.”

According to Zlatic, the students offense does not necessarily have to be disclosed on any future school related forums.

“Reporting of the incident on an academic transcript would depend on the level of suspension that the school decided upon,” Zlatic said. “Criminally, if the act was charged as a felony, the student would have to report the incident to their prospective college if so indicated on the college application.”

As stated by the SRO, trespassing on the property is actually very rare as there

are many security measures in place. This includes police patrol, video surveillance, fences and physical locks.

Although he only entered a few times, George became worried of repercussions once other students were forced to face their actions.

As Karl told us, some of these students were questioned by administrators and Officer Zlatic.

After receiving their initial punishment, the entire group considered the matter to be resolved.

However, recently two students received notices in the mail ordering them to attend a meeting at the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center with their parents and a judge to discuss a punishment for their actions.

“When I first heard about the juvy letter, it was when my friend got a text from another friend. These friends were the two that were caught and questioned by the police after being in the school,” Karl said. “To be honest, I was terrified. Only one of them had

[gotten] a letter, but we didn’t know who else would receive one.”

A sophomore at Parkway North High School was one of the few members of the group who does not live in Clayton, Missouri. She entered the building only four times, yet she was still aware of the potential consequences.

Although she felt immune from the potential sanctions as she did not attend Clayton High School, she eventually became worried about her felonious acts.

“I heard about [students] getting caught by the cops and I started getting scared because they said there were cameras in there,” the student said.

Since this incident, the CHS students have not returned to the abandoned school.

According to Karl, other students from nearby schools have gotten caught by the law enforcement since the initial police intervention. “I don’t regret my actions at all,” David said. “It’s a great story and people love to hear about it.”

Broken glass, beer cans and other debris in Maryland School. Photo by Katherine Sleckman.

NEWS 11

LYDA KREWSON M A Y O R A L C A N D I D AT E

Lyda Krewson is one of twelve people running for the Mayoral position.

BY LILA TAYLOR / reporter

Photos of Krewson by Michael Melinger NEWS 12

As Francis Slay’s fourth term as mayor of St. Louis City comes to an end, many different people have thrown their hat into the ring to take his place.

Alderman Antonio French, aldermanic president Lewis Reed, city treasurer Tishaura Jones, and the owner of Crown Candy Kitchen, Jim Osher are just a handful of the 12 people running for the position alongside Lyda Krewson.

Krewson, the alderman of Ward 28 in St. Louis, is a front-runner for the position.

With over 30 years of experience in local politics and 40 years of residency in the Central West End, Krewson is eager to take that next leap and become the next mayor of St. Louis.

Currently, Krewson is still an alderman in the city and the chief financial officer for an architectural firm as well.

The election will take place on March 7, where, if elected, Krewson will become a full-time civil servant to the city.

Krewson first became involved in St. Louis politics 30 years ago and after spending time volunteering for the campaigns of others, Krewson was elected the alderman of the 28th Ward in 1997.

“I was the primary sponsor of the smoking ban,” Krewson said. “I think that’s a pretty big deal, I think that’s the most important thing that we’ve done for health that we’ve done since we took the lead out of gasoline.

Now that you can no longer smoke in bars and restaurants and workplaces, you have all of the folks who work in those places are not exposed to secondhand smoke.”

In addition, Krewson has worked with Joe Edwards extensively in The Loop, to help get locally famous attractions such as The Pageant, Pi Pizza and The Moonrise hotel started.

“Lyda Krewson is one of those rare, rare people who’s idealistic, but also very practi-

cal,” said Edwards, a businessman, developer, and civic leader who helped revitalize the Delmar Loop area. “It would be marvelous to let Lyda loose on the rest of St. Louis because she gets it.”

Krewson has dedicated much of her life to making her community a better place to live in and a place that children who grew up here will want to come back to.

Her primary passion is her Neighborhood Safety Plan.

“I think that neighborhood safety is really the biggest thing we have to focus on,” Krewson said. “We are short 120 police officers in St. Louis City, and so we need to hire those police officers and we need to pay them competitively. If you are a county police officer, you make considerably more money than a city police officer, and I think we need to have police officers trained better. You don’t call the police on your best day, you call 911 on your worst day. [You want them to] get there fast, then the next thing you want, is for them to exercise perfect judgment, and so you need well-trained officers for that to occur.”

Since Jan. 1, 2017, it is legal in the state of Missouri for anyone over the age of 18 to carry a gun with no background check, no permit and no training.

One of the bills Krewson has currently introduced is a bill at the Board of Aldermen that would require those who carry guns in public to lock them in a box that is permanently affixed to the car when going into an establishment that prohibits firearms. This prevents criminals from quickly breaking into one’s car and grabbing a gun from under a seat of in a glove compartment.

Krewson has always felt a very personal connection the citizens and families that have been left devastated by gun violence. In 1995, her husband was murdered in front of their house in the Central West End. “My kids were two and five. We went to the store and we came back at 8:30 in the evening. A man approached the car and shot my husband through the car window.

My kids and I happened to be sitting in the back seat; my son was two and was having a meltdown, so I hopped in the back seat with them, and we came home. So he was shot right here on this corner, 21 years ago,” Krewson said.

“There’s no way for something really big like that happen to you and have it not influence you. Of course, it influences me. It makes me think about, every year, the people that are losing families to gun violence, and how their lives are changed forever.”

While many would have moved after a traumatizing situation such as this, Krewson instead devoted her life to not only making her own neighborhood safer, but the city of St. Louis a safer place as well.

“My Neighborhood Safety Plan involves not only hiring, training and equipping and paying cops better, it also includes money for recreation programs for kids, money for alternative dispute resolution,” Krewson said. “Because we can’t arrest our way out of crime, it’s really a very complex issue. It’s not all about hiring police, although that’s a component of it. The other component of it is education, recreation, jobs and all those things. There are very few things that a good job won’t cure.”

Krewson’s optimistic look on the city doesn’t just stop at neighborhood safety. She has aspirations and prospects for the city she

NEWS 13

has called home for all of these years.

“I’m in favor of metro link expansion for example. I think it would be great if we could find the funds to do that. Expanding metro, and therefore expanding transportation to jobs, would be a major plus for getting people where they need to go—particularly jobs,” Krewson said. “Also education opportunities and jobs opportunities for all citizens of the city of St. Louis, white, black, old, young, gay, straight. That will be a focus in my administration, to look at each subject through a racial equity lens so that we can achieve more racial impartiality.”

Moreover, Krewson hopes to attract more people to the city of St. Louis as its mayor.

“My goal is to make St. Louis into the city you choose to live, where your parents choose to live, because it’s such a good place to be.”

FEATURE

BRIDGE OF HOPE

BY LAUREN PRAISS and MADELEINE ACKERBURG

History teacher Debra Wiens and STUGO members at Bridge of Hope.

There was the easy part: four STUGO members traveling to Target with teachers David Aiello and Debra Wiens to pick out hundreds of toys.

It was easy to grab baby dolls and Uno cards and throw them in a shopping cart, to take pictures and to grin as they carried the bags bursting with holiday joy to the car.

Although this seemed quite simple and fun, there was still the hard part: entering the Bridge of Hope shelter with the bags of toys, and coming face-to-face with the issues that are plaguing a community only 15 minutes away from CHS. On a Monday morning, Clayton High School teachers unexpectedly began to collect loose change from students.

Despite the brevity of the fundraising effort, students at CHS had raised over $900 by that Thursday. STUGO members then used the money to purchase toys for a community in desperate need -- a community that, without CHS, would not have special toys to place under a Christmas tree.

“It was a really great opportunity to be able to help kids and their families be able to enjoy the holidays,” said CHS junior and STUGO member Annelise Laakko. “It was something so simple as spending an hour or two in a store and purchasing toys, and we were able to really impact a community.

I feel really fortunate to have participated and so should everyone who donated to the

cause.”

However, while many students patted themselves on the back for the feat of raising so much money in so few days, there are many bigger issues still hovering over this desperate community.

When Stephen and Robin Boda moved to St. Louis, they originally intended to flyto Africa for one year and help children in need. However, the pair soon witnessed the challenges and issues that permeated their own neighborhood.

“There is a disparity between the rich and the poor, and it’s getting greater and greater,” Stephen said. “We thought to ourselves, ‘what can we do to make this better?’

We started working with World Impact, working in this neighborhood that we raised our kids in and asked the people living here what their needs were. It’s one thing to come in and say, ‘oh, these houses are bad, the crime rate is high,’ but it’s another thing to sit down the people who live here and talk to them about what they think are problems.”

Together, Stephen and Robin run Bridge of Hope, a community shelter in St. Louis City that provides food, showers, tutoring for all ages, clothing and hope for anyone who needs it.

Because of these resources, Bridge of

FEATURE 14

Hope is considered a “safe place” where individuals in need of help can start new lives.

Debra Wiens, history teacher at CHS, has been working very closely with Bridge of Hope for over a year.

“A friend told me about Bridge of Hope [and how] they were trying to change lives, and that they needed tutors, and that I should try it,” Wiens said. “I went and fell in love with it. I just started as a tutor and enjoyed the relationships that I established with people there. I wanted to help the director, Robin, too. I believe so strongly in what she does.”

Robin tutors for the SAT, ACT and GED, as well as general tutoring for anyone who needs it. She teaches over 300 students from ages six to 80, varied each day by people who come to the shelter for help.

“We are currently tutoring a 70-year-old woman who kept saying ‘teach me to read, teach me to read.’ She never thought she would be able to read; people in her life told her she wouldn’t be able to. But now she is.

This place is about creating opportunity for these people,” Robin said.

Although education is a significant issue in society, Robin hopes that she can teach anyone of any age basic skills that an individual needs in the real world.

“The classroom is my world,” Robin said.

“I kept hearing from people in my community ‘my kid is having trouble in school,’ or, ‘I

FEATURE need my GED.’ Education is an issue that is front and center in these communities. Over the years, I have been predominantly trying to teach basic education. I want all of my students to be able to read, write, and produce math at a fourth grade level.”

The need for education is drastic in these communities.

“Of course, I want my students to get their GED, I want them to get a good score on the ACT, but the reality is that I only have some students that do these things,” Robin said. “I am teaching the bulk of these students how to do the fundamentals such as reading.”

Wiens is one of many tutors who help Robin teach children and adults on weekends at Bridge of Hope.

“I listen to the people who are in the neighborhood and in the community to know the challenges that they face. They know what they need,” Wiens said. “I’m just trying to help bring structure and connect to people beyond their neighborhoods. They know what they need; they just don’t have the resources in which to achieve.”

Through dedication and time, many individuals are helping this community and are rewarded by learning important skills, developing new relationships, and gaining different perspectives about the world.

“Everyone has a lot to learn,” Robin said.

“Sometimes [tutors are] like ‘woah, I can’t believe what these people are going through.’

The tutors will often come back and say ‘I’m so humbled to work here’ because they are finding out that life is hard for our community because they’re seeing it up close and personal. And, the tutors are of course teaching these people something too, but there’s education that goes both ways. Everyone has something to teach each other, which is super cool and important. If students believe they have something to teach the tutor, they can let down their guard a little bit.”

Because of their incredible work and commitment, Stephen and Robin have gradually connected individuals together through powerful relationships.

“Everything we do here is based on relationships,” Stephen said. “When I was little, I needed someone to fix me. I had resourc-

es that could feed into me. These little kids [are] hungry for the same resources. There was a time when both [Robin and I] needed to be served, and we know how it felt when people served us and helped us. We don’t do it necessarily for our own happiness, but we do it because there’s a need.”

Ultimately, Stephen and Robin recognize that they need to motivate the individuals in their community.

Although many of the individuals have faced struggles and challenges in their lives, Stephen and Robin believe these individuals have the strength to achieve great things with just a few small steps in the right direction.

“We have to empower them, encourage them. It’s not like we’re putting a carrot in front of a horse and they can never get the carrot,” Stephen said. “It’s having goals and breaking those goals down step by step. We celebrate when they take step forward, and we weep with them when they make mistakes. We tell them to get back up, let’s move forward. We move forward from our mistakes.”

Wiens and STUGO members with some of the items purchased for Bridge of Hope. Photos from STUGO.

FEATURE 15

A N E W N AT U R E ,

BY NOAH BROWN / managing editor Torrence Breaux lost everything.

“I made a bunch of stupid decisions, following the wrong people, listening to the wrong crowd, trying to make fast money.

I had a job and would quit the job because it took too long to make the money I was making on the streets. I kept going back to the streets because that’s how I knew how to do, and it was easy to do it,” Breaux said.

“It led me to get incarcerated to the point where I lost my family, I lost everything I owned in a matter of six months. I lost my house, my car, my fiance, and my kids, all because of one bad decision. I didn’t know what my next move was going to be.”

But with the help of the local non-profit organization Mission: St. Louis, Breaux connected with a small local furniture company intent on giving ex-felons like him a second lease on life.

Robert Karleskint, the founder of Anew Nature, does not run an ordinary furniture shop. Rather, in conjunction with Mission: St. Louis, Karleskint hires workers with past convictions, offering internship programs centered around teaching job skills in the furniture-building process.

“Over the last few years, we’ve been designing pieces of furniture and refinishing furniture to offer employment and a wide array of skills for interns going through our classes,” Karleskint said.

Furniture-building presents a unique opportunity for Karleskint and his team to teach their interns practical life skills.

“Furniture is unique in that, say you have a wooden top and a metal leg. It might take 30 different tools and five different skillsets to finish one piece of furniture,” Karleskint said. “By the end of our internship you learn enough tools to where you could build a house, you could do trim carpentry, you could paint a car, you could jump in a welding shop, and you could even do some landscaping with some of the tools that we use.”

In offering practical job training to their interns, Anew Nature serves as a bridge between the hardships of their past and the promise of the future.

“The last three years has been trying to equip each guy going through our class with enough skills so they could go out and get any construction job immediately, basically.

If there’s an opening at a plumbing company, they can go. If there’s an opening at an autobody shop, they could go,” Karleskint said.

Travis McClure, a current Anew Nature intern and St. Louis native, recognizes and appreciates the opportunity Karleskint and Anew Nature grant him to improve his future.

“I changed my work ethic. I value what they do here. I have learned skill sets I never thought I’d be able to learn or be doing in my life,” McClure said. “I appreciate the opportunity that they’re providing us, for giving us a second chance to better our lives and giving us the skillsets to go out and find a job.”

Karleskint’s earnest belief in second chances is what drives him to do the work that he does. “[I came to the realization that] this is not right, there has to be a way that I can do something about this practically, that the guys going through the program with me aren’t needy, but they need help,” Karleskint said. “I am not biased if you have a felony.

That’s just because of my own experiences in

FEATURE 16

life. I think Anew Nature is important because I don’t care what you’ve done. I care about what you can do now. It’s only fair that we all get second chances.”

Graduating from Anew Nature’s job training program, a process which generally requires about six months, is not the end of the road for interns.

“Once someone comes through the program, once they’re graduated, and they have all the skills I taught them, I call all the guys I used to work with, and I’m like ‘hey, are you hiring? A guy was just taught this, and he’s really, really good at this. I think he’d be a good fit for you right now.

It’s only fair that we all get second chances.’

Really just personal networking is how I try to get guys jobs,” Karleskint said. “Because we’re so small, our goal is to hire guys and in the next six months, get them a really good job to continue after their internship.”

For Karleskint, the rewarding part of his work as the owner of a furniture shop has little to do with the furniture produced, and even less to do with the amount of profit

A NEW LIFE How an organization is helping men rebuild themselves. earned. Instead, Karleskint finds meaning in the perspective he gains from working with his interns.

“The most gratifying thing has been just personal realization, that happened really early on, the fact that the biggest difference between me and the people I teach job skills to is the fact that I didn’t grow up under the circumstances that they did. I had different opportunities and different privileges,” Karleskint said. “I grew up pretty poor. I never would’ve considered myself privileged, but the obstacles that these guys have overcome are just insurmountable and they’re not like anything I’ve dealt with in my life.”

Another rewarding component of Karleskint’s work with interns extends far beyond the pieces of furniture they build together.

“Just forming relationships with the 60 or so guys I’ve trained has been awesome. It’s a community thing; we become friends, hang out, and get to know each other,” Karleskint said.

Derrick Perryman, a St. Louis native and current Anew Nature intern, expressed his gratitude for being given the chance to redefine his future through Mission: St. Louis and Anew Nature.

“I thank people like Rob, and the whole Anew Nature team for the opportunity they’re providing us because a lot of people wouldn’t want to give an ex-felon a fair chance even though we’ve already paid our debt to society.

We really just want to start over and live a productive life as a law-abiding citizen, and through Anew Nature and Mission: St. Louis, the opportunity has been afforded to us. This whole thing is a life-altering move and you’ve got to stick with it,” Perryman said.

(Opposite page) Bottom left (16): An intern carrying furniture. Bottom right (16): Anew Nature employees carrying wood. Top left page (17): Robert Karleskint. Bottom left (17): Furniture by Anew Nature. Below (17): Derrick Perryman.

Photos from Anew Nature.

FEATURE 17

CLAYTON’S CASTRO CONNECTION

BY JUSTIN GUILAK and MAX STEINBAUM

Fidel Castro and his soldiers spent their time in the US hanging out with former CHS students.

The Clayton class of 1960 had an experience like no other. During their junior trip to Washington D.C., they got to meet Fidel Castro just after his successful revolution.

“I had always wanted to see Washington D.C.,” said Ellen Adelstein, the Clayton alumna who coordinated the entire trip.

The junior trips had previously been canceled for inappropriate student behavior, but Adelstein and many others were still interested in going.

“There was a group of us that really wanted to see the government sites and do Washington right,” Adelstein said.

After gathering students, recruiting chaperones, and planning the trip, Adelstein approached the principal about bringing the junior trip back. When he rejected the pro-

posal, she moved up the line to the superintendent and convinced him to override the principal’s decision on one condition: money had to be raised to pay for any students interested in going who could not afford the trip As CHS students still continue to do, Adelstein and the others spent a long time before the trip selling food (specifically, candy) during lunch periods to raise money.

Once the preparations were complete, the students boarded the train for D.C. When they learned that their hotel was directly across the street from the Cuban embassy, the students were excited. When they learned that Fidel Castro and his soldiers, who had just won a successful revolution against Batista, were staying there at the same time, they got even more excited.

FEATURE 18

The CHS students’ natural reaction upon hearing this was, of course, to invite Castro to their party. Castro was busy, but his soldiers were eager to meet young American girls, and they came over to listen to music and drink Cokes with them.

After many failed attempts at meeting Castro, the students tried one last time to see him. He was supposed to remain in the embassy that day but surprised everyone by going out to take a walk. The Clayton students standing outside his door followed him through the park, and their enthusiasm interested Castro.

Wandering around D.C., the students and Fidel Castro conversed about politics, economics, revolutions, communism and cooking. At one point during their discussion, in which high school students questioned the leader of a Cuba about the future of his country, he said to the girls, “When

you are married, you have got to know how to cook, not just how to be a doctor or a lawyer” according to a Post-Dispatch article from 1959.

As Castro became friendlier with the students, who still supported him more than Batista, he invited them to come to Cuba over the summer. He also told them to send two dollars to him, and he would send one back with a signature.

Towards the end of their two-hour walk, one of the students, Sheldon Shapiro, grabbed a 12 inch cigar from the hotel store and offered it to Castro. Although he likely would not smoke it since he only smoked the iconic Cuban cigars, Castro accepted the offer politely.

The students met Castro before relations between the US and Cuba began to deteriorate. They had only good things to say about the new leader.

“I thought he was impressive. Even though this was a spur-of-the moment encounter, I felt he knew exactly what he was doing. He was out there pressing the flesh like a good politician does,” said Shapiro in a 2014 interview with The Guardian.

“He was very, very charismatic. Extremely charismatic,” said Adelstein, reflecting back on her experience with him. She told the Post-Dispatch that, “if he turns out to be a good leader for his people, he will do wonderful things because he is so charismatic that I could see how people would follow him to the ends of the Earth. But, if he turns out not to do good things for his people, then Cuba has some bad years ahead.”

In another part of their trip, the students also visited the Soviet Union’s embassy. Castro asked the students if they knew much about Russia.

As Adelstein said, “this was the Cold War. It’s not like today, where Putin and Trump are having a little duet. I mean, this is the Cold War, where if you heard a loud noise, you ducked under your desk because you thought it might be an atom bomb.”

Expecting the students not to know much about the Soviet Union, Castro suggested that they read one of the propaganda magazines, only to be surprised in learning that the CHS library had copies of the magazine. “It was their propaganda piece, but if you needed to know about it at Clayton High, you learned about it,” said Adelstein as she continued to praise her experience in the District. “Every five years when we have our class reunions, we will gather and drink a toast to the wonderful teachers we had at Clayton high,” Adelstein said, expanding on her praise for the district. “So many of us thought of our really good, fundamental start at the Clayton School District.”

Photos from 1959 CLAMO yearbook.

FEATURE 19

FEATURE

365 DAYS WITH DAD

BY MITALI SHARMA / managing editor

FEATURE 20

Cbabi Bayoc is becoming a well-known name in the St. Louis area. The artist, a St. Louis local himself, had his work featured as the cover of Prince’s 2001 album “The Rainbow Children” and has even had Beyonce order cupcakes from SweetArt, the vegan bakery/art studio that Bayoc runs with his wife, Reine.

SweetArt began as an effort to combine the pair’s talents. Reine is the baker -- hence the sweet -- and Cbabi, of course, is the artist. With a personal studio, Cbabi began to focus on his artwork.

He started painting 20 years ago when he graduated high school. Although he did not feel particularly passionate about school, Cbabi knew he had to study something and thus decided to pursue visual art as his focus in college.

“I caught the bug and haven’t gone back,” Cbabi said with respect to his passion for painting and art.

In 2012, he began a project called 365 Days with Dad. Cbabi painted one image of a Black father every day of 2012 in efforts to promote the role of fathers, particularly Black fathers at that time, in their children’s lives.

“There are far too many [children] who don’t either have their dad in their home or know them. I wanted them to know that there were Black men that were responsible and taking care of their children,” Cbabi said.

With hopes of achieving this goal, Cbabi would paint the portraits of the fathers’ real stories. Each painting had a true story behind it.

“I think it’s nice to see stories because we just see people walking around -- mad, sad, whatever -- but we have no idea what’s going on, and a lot of times it has to do with what’s happening in the heart,” Cbabi said.

Connecting to the heart is exactly what the project achieved. Cbabi received very emotional and passionate responses from the community -- St. Louis and beyond.

“Impact wise, that was just reflected in stories people were sharing with me and emotions people felt when witnessed the project unfold,” Cbabi said. “I know [the project] works because people are crying and texting. It’s doing what it needs to do.”

Inspired by the success of this last proj-

FEATURE A profile on a St. Louis artist and owner of Sweet Art: Cbabi Bayoc.

Left: Dad’s MVP, Above: Unwind Together.

Paintings by Bayoc. ect, Cbabi has just started another 365 Days with Dad for 2017, five years after the original one in 2012. This time the project will feature fathers of all nationalities, not just African-American men.

“I really just want to keep pushing the importance of family, the importance of men being responsible, and using real stories to let people know how they’ve been impacted by the dads, sons, and uncles, nephews, or the local janitor or whoever it is they’ve had a connection with with a male presence and what it really means to our community in whole, not just in the black community,” Cbabi said.

Cbabi’s passion about the responsibility of fatherhood stems from what he has ob-

served in the world around him. His focus criticizes the gender roles that push dads out of the parental and nurturer responsibility.

“Mother’s day is really blown up -- for great reason -- but father’s day really isn’t treated in the same light,” Cbabi said.

As these gender roles suggest dads as not having full responsibility of their children and solely being the “babysitter,” Cbabi has made his email signature include a personal quote: “dads don’t babysit 365.”

“When I take my daughter to the grocery store I’m not babysitting, we just happen to go to the grocery store together. My time

FEATURE 21

alone with my children is just as important as mom’s time alone,” Cbabi said.

As for the future, the new 365 Days with Dad is Cbabi’s main focus along with the expansion of SweetArt, specifically SweetArt’s mission, as Cbabi called it.

“Our mission there [is] to have people of all walks sit next to each other, enjoy good food, and just have great conversation,” Cbabi said.

Similarly, Cbabi advocates pursuit of a life mission to those transitioning to adulthood in today’s society.

“Know whatever’s in your heart and whatever you’re passionate about and try to find a way to make it your life mission and just spread some love.”

MVSTERMIND CHS alum Muhammad Austin harnesses his creativity and work ethic in the form of music and has emerged as a rising star in the industry.

“My pops told me at a young age, ‘Music is the universal language. It’s a universal connector. It’s what has connected humankind and allowed us to make it through all these different situations. It has allowed us to have conversations. It crosses so many boundaries. Someone can hate you and still actually love your music. You can put a message in music and slowly break that stigma down,’” (2008) CHS graduate Muhammad Austin said.

Austin has carried this belief throughout his musical career, which started at the age of 12. Despite not having the most high-end gear to produce beats, Austin considers this challenge to have benefited him.

“I feel looking back that it has been the biggest blessing low-key. Cause a lack of resources heightens your creativity. It just naturally does that. If you are hungry and wanna make it happen, you’re gonna figure out a way to take whatever you’ve got and use your creativity to get what you want. It’s like a secret formula almost,” Austin said. “Imagine someone who already has the resources, you know those luxuries can make you lazy. You are challenged now to go beyond the lines. Even now, the studio I have is not a million-dollar studio, so I have to take what I have and flex my creative approach and make it sound aesthetically pleasing enough for me to be next to Jay Z.” Austin honed his particular work ethic dating back to his days at CHS, gaining experience and inspiration for his music today.

“They had a electronic music class. That was really fresh. I was a product of the deseg community. It gave me a really interesting

perspective. This is an amazing school, and at the same time there was a slight awkwardness in being the deseg student,” Austin said.

“Sometimes you would get awkwardness from the students or the teachers or the kids’ parents. I think one year the parents took a vote in the community and they were done with the deseg program. They were like, we’re tired of you guys messing up test scores, fighting, etc. They were trying to cancel it. And you know, a large amount of students walked out of their classes to the quad and did a protest. Those moments happened when we were young, before Ferguson. That was still something going on in our city, and you know I talk about it a lot in my raps.”

FEATURE 22

Amidst these events, CHS was the origin of Austin’s performer name, Mvstermind.

“I was sitting in the cafeteria at CHS and, at the time, I didn’t’ really know. I was just like, yo this name sounds perfect and then I stuck with it. Then I was like, I hate this name, it sounds corny. I didn’t like it. Eventually I was like, this is your name, work with it. The most fascinating part about it is you know there were times where I was like, I should choose a different name, but now looking into the picture, I feel like I subconsciously grew into the name of being a mastermind, someone who plans and plots and strategically sets things up for them to fall into place,” Austin said. “I felt like that was kind of fresh. I didn’t notice that the way my

MUHAMMAD

BY SEAN KIM and KEDAR VENKATESH

thoughts were moving into the universe like I was really masterminding. And its mastermind with a ‘v’ because of Google search.

You type in mastermind with an ‘a’, everything is going to pop up. You type it with a ‘v’, my brand will pop up.”

After CHS, Austin decided to pursue his dream of music at Loyola University, attending the school for business. Although the university had a music industry major, Austin chose to learn about the business side of the industry, selling records to pay for his college tuition. In the end, Austin values his decision.

“I feel like it did on different levels because me being in school taught me how to

pull an all nighter. Or a 32 hourer, just to pass a class. I feel like completing my album was like your semester exam because I was seriously staying up all night, figuring out formulas, practicing. I actually did learn a lot. I went to great school. A lot of people who graduated from there, like one of my teachers founded the company Tunecore which was a big distribution company. I was classmates with G-Eazy. He actually recorded my first EP and kind of taught me how to record and stuff like that,” Austin said. “So I was a school with like people who were out here making moves. Like New Augustine, they’ve got songs with like the group The Internet and stuff premiering on billboards.

FEATURE 23

The school was stacked with legends in the making and that was nice.”

After gaining some experience and buying his own studio, Austin began to gain attention with his music, becoming featured on MTV, creating hits on SoundCloud, performing for crowds and more.

“I hope my listeners can get a dope balanced perspective. And also like a balanced perspective when it comes to my music. It can be pretty inspirational, but I didn’t want it to be a just smile and just wave your hands happy kind of inspirational. I want my listeners to feel why you should smile. In the midst of damaging and destroying things that are going on. We can’t let that strip us of our humanity and ourselves. We can’t go through these situations and not feel comfortable to crack a joke and be able to not think that there is something past it,” Austin said. “A lot of my stuff is hidden messages of finding yourself, finding a balance and how to maintain your own mental health. So then I say things like ‘finesse the blessings’.

So that is not corny. I mean like finesse is like the thing now days. Seriously, when you are in a horrible situation throughout life and history, you can finesse the good out of a horrible situation and get a positive thing out of that. We can finesse the blessing. My culture has been finessing the blessings. We don’t have a choice, you know, we have to seek and find the good that is out there. It’s not like it’s completely abundant all in your face, but it’s there.”

Although Mvstermind is not yet a household name, Austin aspires to have the ability to spread his messages and experiences through his lyrics. “If I can play that part and have some type of influence in the world from what I love to do, it’s amazing.” iiii

Photos of Muhammad Austin from Mvstermind’s management.

HI-POINTE HISTORY

BY MADDY BALE AND CATHERINE WALSH

Views of the Hi-Pointe Theatre during the 1930’s and 2010’s (Photos from Grayson family).

Built in 1922, the Hi-Pointe Theatre on McCausland Avenue is the oldest continuously- operating, single-screen movie theater in the St. Louis Metropolitan area.

Throughout its many years, the Theatre has fostered dozens of connections to the Clayton community.

When the parents of current owner Diana Grayson purchased the Hi-Pointe in 1977, Diana was a fourteen-year-old student at Clayton.

Now, Diana works closely with the theatre’s booker to communicate with studios and distributors and to acquire the art films shown in the Hi-Pointe Theatre.

As they grew, Diana’s children followed in her footsteps and attended Clayton schools.

The family’s history in the theatre business inspired one of these children, CHS graduate Peter Grayson, to attend film school and to pursue a career in film.

Before Peter moved to Los Angeles for a new job, the Globe sat down with him to learn about the Hi-Pointe’s influence and history.

From a young age, Peter and his brothers were exposed to an impressive amount of film history through their family’s theatre business.

“Movies are all we ever talk about,” Peter said. “We watched a lot of old movies as kids, movies that most kids our age probably hadn’t heard of.”

Indeed, the Hi-Pointe Theater has been applauded for its old-school atmosphere – an atmosphere which the family strives to

maintain.

In August of 2015, the Graysons restored the front of the theatre and returned its appearance back to that of the Theatre in the 1930s.

At the same time, however, the theatre also experienced a major change in order to keep up with the modern demands of movie-goers.

After three years of construction, a second theatre called the Hi-Pointe Backlot was opened in May of 2015 behind the original.

Unlike the main theatre’s 400-seat auditorium, the intimate Backlot seats 48 people.

Despite its small size, the Backlot has certainly changed the family business.

“The Backlot is the best thing to ever happen to the Hi-Pointe. It allows us to play more than one movie at a time,” Peter said.

“All the changes make us feel like the HiPointe is going to last.”

Combined with the Theatre’s timeless ambience, the many changes and updates have worked together to ensure the HiPointe Theatre’s unwavering popularity ever since its 1922 opening.

Its uniqueness and intimacy pulls customers back time and time again. “[The Theatre] remains popular for people who enjoy watching movies the way they’re supposed to be seen,” Peter said.

“With only one screen, everyone is there for the same reason. It’s the most authentic,

FEATURE 24

classic movie-going experience out there.”

In fact, it was those exact experiences that prompted Peter to pursue a career in film.

Just like Diana and her brothers worked behind the concession stand of the Theatre when their parents originally purchased the business, Peter and his siblings also found jobs in the family’s business.

“We never had to go out and find our first jobs, because the theatre was there for us,” Peter said. “Working at the family theatre was, and still is, the best job in the world.”

But after graduating from CHS and studying film and television production at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Peter is ready to expand beyond the family business.

“Having the theatre in the family made me develop an undying passion for film. I want to be a filmmaker,” Peter said. “Hopefully every job I have will be connected to film in some way.”

As for the future of the theatre, it will never stand still. Despite the significant changes throughout the last few years, the family will continue its work to preserve and advance the business.

Personally, Peter hopes that the Theatre built without a parking lot will one day have a parking lot of its own.

“The Hi-Pointe is the oldest, most iconic single-screen movie theatre in St. Louis. The Hi-Pointe also has the single best bag of popcorn you will ever [eat] in your life,” Peter said. “It’s family owned and operated, and it’s almost 100 years old. That’s a rare thing.”

S E PA R A T E and

U N EQUA L The current voluntary student transfer program in St. Louis and the uncertain future of public education in our city

b y C a m i l l e R e s p e s s a n d E l l i e To m a s s o n with C h a r l i e B re n n a n

“Separate and Unequal”: the current Voluntary Student Transfer program and the uncertain future of public education in our city is the third installment of a three-part series on housing, accessibility to education, and the Voluntary Student Transfer Program. The Globe is dedicating three issues to discuss these topics because, as we dove into this story in May and have continued to learn more, the story we want to tell has evolved.

We felt in order to do this story justice we had to dedicate the space, time and in-depth, long-term reporting to these issues.

I

It was a Tuesday at Clayton High School.

May 18, 2004.

Unlike many other Tuesdays at this place of learning, many classrooms lacked one crucial element: students.

According to a St. Louis Post Dispatch article from May 2004, over 700 CHS students walked out of the building at 1 Mark Twain Circle on this Tuesday.

These students united to plan and execute a walkout during the school day to protest Clayton administration’s handling of discussions surrounding the Voluntary Student Transfer program, and its potential ending.

Hundreds of students - of many races wanted the District to understand that they valued the VST program, and did not want to see it come to a close.

In 2004, the School District of Clayton had to make a decision about the VST program.

The District had to decide whether or not they wanted to continue participating in the program for the 2005-2006 school year while receiving $6,850 per pupil as reimbursement for each student participating in VST in the District, $5,528 less than they received the previous year.

In addition to a walkout, students organized a petition in support of continuation of the VST program. It contained over 600 signatures.

Ultimately, the District made the choice hundreds of students wanted them to make.

Clayton would continue participating in the program, and would continue accepting new students through VST. Clayton, along with many other St.

Louis County districts, would later make this decision to continue to take part in the VST program through five-year extensions in 2007, 2012, and 2016. In its 35 years of existence, the VST program has had over 50,000 black students participate in the program, over 10,000 have been students in the School District of Clayton. But all of this, slowly, but surely, is coming to an end.

The New Settlement Agreement After 20 years of the VST program as a court mandated part of the Liddell settlement, explained in part two of this series, the state of Missouri, which bore the financial brunt of the program, wanted out of the expensive arrangement.

Up until 1999 the state of Missouri was funding the VST program and the magnet schools and the net cost was substantial. In order to end the program and effectively the State’s financial contributions to it, Missouri filed for unitary status of the St. Louis City and County public schools.

“These remedies don’t go forever and they need to wind down at some point so they filed that motion to end the desegregation programs and particularly to end the state’s obligation to pay for all of it,” Mark Bremer, lawyer representing the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation (VICC), said.

Essentially, unitary status would indicate that the St. Louis City and County schools are no longer affected by the vestiges of the prior dual system of racial discrimination.

The issue at hand falls under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of 1868, where race-based decision making is prohibited only barring the “remedial exception” which says that one can engage in

26

race-based decision making if it is a remedy to a prior race-based violation.

This “remedial exception” only applies to equalize the disparities between the city and county school districts created by the long period of racial segregation. If Missouri was successful in achieving unitary status, this would mean that there were no longer disparities to equalize, thus the VST program would be unconstitutional.

The file for unitary status went to trial in 1996 before Federal Judge George Gunn. Gunn wanted the case settled between the school districts and the state, so he appointed Bill Danforth, former chancellor at Washington University, to be the settlement coordinator.

Bremer, who represented the St. Louis City and County School Districts, had three main conditions for settlement.

First, Bremer wanted the County districts joined with the City districts to run the program, not a judge or any other outside entity as these districts would work in the best interest of the students.

Second, the transfer program could not cost the districts any money because they could not have their necessary resources depleted to educate their own children.

And third, there would have to be a plan to phase the program out. Under the settlement proposed by Bremer there would be enough funding to run the program they were contemplating so that the program would phase out about five percent per year over a 20 year period.

However this phase out was and is quite contentious among all parties involved.

“In my view as a lawyer under the Supreme Court decisions construing the constitution, the desegregation remedies cannot go in perpetuity. They can’t go forever,” Bremer said. “We had a disagreement though because the lawyers for the plaintiffs

wanted it to go forever and we said, ‘We’re just going to have to respectfully disagree with you.’ But in any event, we set it up so that it could phase out very gradually over a 20 year period.”

Conversely, civil rights attorney for the NAACP Veronica Johnson said, “I disagree with [VICC’s] lawyers. Legally if you have a constitutional violation then it is my perspective that the remedy continues until the violation has been cured. Any program that identifies someone by the color of their skin and treats them differently is suspect in an Equal Protection Clause. But if you are doing that because there has been a violation that’s one thing. If you are doing that and there has not been a violation that is something different.”

Finally, after much deliberation, in 1999 the settlement agreement was passed. The law was called Senate Bill 781 (SB 781).

SB 781 completely removed the state of Missouri from the lawsuit. It continued all of the existing programs, but as a court agreement without a judge overseeing it.

Without the court overseeing the program, there needed to be a new leading

body, so Bremer and his firm set up the Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation (VICC).

Under VICC, the transfer program is run by all of the school districts participating in the program.The board of directors of VICC is comprised of the superintendents of those districts.

In making decisions regarding VST, each of these districts votes in proportion to the number of students they are educating as part of the transfer program.

With the state of Missouri no longer giving the same funding to the program, funding was coming from other avenues such as a sales tax the NAACP helped levy which would go towards the VST program.

But the program still did not run at full cost reimbursement for the districts, and it still does not.

Even so, according to CEO of VICC David Glaser, the reimbursement rates VICC provides is not minimal.

“We don’t have a huge reimbursement, but quite frankly, the amount we pay to county districts to reimburse them for the costs at $7,000 is generally one of the high-

est, if not the highest reimbursement rate of any program in the nation. Even though Clayton’s total cost of education is obviously a lot more than $7,000 per student, the incremental costs of educating that one new student is probably not much more. It’s probably less than $7,000 a student,” Glaser said.

As of September 2016, it is estimated that the School District of Clayton spends roughly $20,000 per pupil per year.

For Bremer, the settlement agreements and the formation of VICC became more than court cases and legal activities he was involved in because of his law degree, thanks in part to Danforth.

“The one who really hammered that into my head was Bill Danforth,” Bremer said. “He said, ‘Lawyers-schmoyers. Don’t get in the way of settling this. It needs to get done Bremer. Find a way around it.

Don’t tell me that there are legal obstacles that we can’t hurdle. Find out what they are and figure a way to get over ‘em. Even if it’s never been done before. Even if it’s sort of thinking out of the box as lawyers and doing things that are unprecedented. Just do it and get ‘em done.’ And that’s what we did.”

NuMBER OF STUDENTS

PROJECTED NUMBER OF VST STUDENTS IN CLAYTON*

*Projections have only been made up to 2023-2024.

Projections are from the School District of Clayton.

SCHOOL YEAR

27

187 BLACK STUDENTS AT CHS 123 ARE VST 15 ARE STATUTORY TUITION

By The Numbers “I want to provide a culture for our [students] that will look the same as the world around them and right now we don’t have a natural diversity within the community,” School District of Clayton Superintendent Sean Doherty said.

This lack of natural diversity -- minority students living in Clayton -- is seen in the fact that, of the 187 black students at CHS for the 2016-2017 school year, 123 of these students are apart of VST and do not live in the District. This leaves 64 black students that attend CHS because they live in the District, have a parent that works for the District, (allowing them to attend for free through Board Grant) pay personal tuition, or attend the District through statutory tuition.

The latter - statutory tuition - allows students from unaccredited school districts in St. Louis city to attend accredited schools, such as Clayton, at the cost of the unaccredited districts.

The most recent case of this was when the Normandy School District and Riverview Gardens District were stripped of their accreditation in 2012. For the 201314 school year, Clayton gained 46 students in its District through statutory tuition.

This school year, there are 67 students in the District through statutory tuition.

Of these 46 students, 20 are at CHS. 15 of these students are black.

In December 2016, Riverview Gardens regained state accreditation. So, slowly but surely, Clayton’s statutory tuition numbers will decrease so long as other area school districts maintain accreditation.

The VST program’s reimbursement is a little more complicated.

After the 1999 settlement agreement, the state of Missouri no longer paid for the majority of the program’s funding. Because of this, funds needed to be moved around in order to keep the program funded without costing the districts which

would inhibit them from educating their own students.

The VICC program reimburses Clayton and other districts participating in the VST program with a reimbursement of around $7,000 per student, money VICC receives from Missouri’s K-12 Foundation Formula and Proposition C. While this is not technically “full cost reimbursement” for the education of these students, the cost of adding additional students is much less than the average Clayton student.

Glaser said, “Even though Clayton’s total cost of education is obviously a lot more than $7,000 per student, the incremental costs of educating that one new student [through VST] is probably not much more.

It’s probably less than $7,000 dollars a student. The analogy I use is if a plane has two empty spots on a cruise ship, the ship is already sailing, all the staff is already on the ship, so how much more does it really cost them to take those last two passengers?

Probably not a whole lot.”

The way students are accepted into Clayton from the VST program is based off of the number of projected available openings in the District, while still maintaining target class room sizes.

If classrooms are not at capacity by resident students, those extra spaces can be filled with VST students or students paying tuition to attend Clayton schools.

Clayton’s target classroom size ranges from 18 per class in kindergarten and first grade, increasing in grades second through eighth up to 20 and finally growing to 22 students per classroom at CHS. A substantial element of the costs of VICC is transportation. These services cost upwards of $18,000,000 per year and VICC receives $5 million in reimbursement from the State. VICC uses around 200 busses and 100 cabs to bring VST students to and from their schools everyday.

According to Glaser, from a financial standpoint, the VST program works best as

28

less and less students participate. As written in the 1999 settlement agreement, the program has been in the process of phasing out since it was created.

“Financially, [VST] does not work well, quite frankly, unless our program is declining,” Glaser said.

Notably, the 1998-1999 school year, one of VICC’s peak years in terms of enrollment, 13,263 students were enrolled in VST. Since then, in accordance with the settlement agreement, the program has been decreasing by about five percent each year.

4,471 students total enrolled in VST across all participating districts for the 2016-2017 school year, including 611 new students accepted into the program.

VICC projections indicate that about 150 new students will be accepted into the VST program for the 2023-2024 school year, the last year VICC will accept new students. Of the 150 new students, Clayton is projected to receive five of these students through the program.

According to Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Greg Batenhorst, these five students will all be placed in kindergarten at Clayton’s elementary schools in order to allow these final VST students to be in the District for as many years as possible.

These five students would be set to graduate from CHS in 2037.

For the 2012-2013 school year, 365 of the 2,504 students in Clayton Schools were in the VST program. This year, 276 of 2,637 students in Clayton are a part of the program. It is projected that in the 2023-2024 school year, there will be 134 VST students in the District.

In addition to the diversity VICC and the VST program have brought to the District, VICC also produced millions of dollars in revenue for the District in the past three decades.

In the 2015-2016 school year, of the District’s $55.5 million in revenue, $2,184,572 of it came from VICC. However as the VST program phases out,

this revenue will be lost as well. In 20232024, the last year new students will be enrolled in the VST program, the District is projected receive $943,200 in revenue from VICC - $1,241,372 less than 2015-2016.

The School District of Clayton CFO Mary Jo Gruber predicts that this loss of revenue from VICC will have monetary effects on the District.

“Over the next 20 years, as the program phases out, the funding from VICC will decline with the decline in enrollment,” Gruber said. “This decline in funding could result in overall District deficit spending.”

VST Students

Al Slater in first grade Sometimes, when CHS sophomore Al Slater is going to sleep at home after football, basketball, or lacrosse practice, and doing his homework, he cannot fall asleep.

Slater lives in North St. Louis and many nights he is kept up by loud noises: police sirens, gunshots.

“It’s pretty sad,” he said. “I try to go to sleep after doing my homework and I just can’t because of the police sirens and shootings and loud noises coming out of nowhere.”

For Slater, attending the School District of Clayton, being in the area, and sometimes sleeping at a friend’s house in Clayton gives him a sense of peace he doesn’t get in his own neighborhood.

“Being able to go to Clayton is especially significant in my life. When I am in Clayton, I feel like things are a lot better and a lot more fun. Where I live, you hear a lot of sirens throughout the day. But in Clayton, things are really peaceful,” he said. “When I wake up in Clayton I can actually hear the birds, but when I wake up at my house in

the city all I hear are sirens.”

After attending Mark Twain Elementary School for kindergarten, Slater’s grandmother, a former educator, applied Slater for the VST program.

In first grade, Slater was at Captain Elementary. He has been in the School District of Clayton ever since.

Slater lives with his aunt because his mom and dad both have had substance abuse problems. Currently, Slater’s mom is living with a friend. His father is homeless.

“My mom and dad were on hard drugs, and they both had to go to rehab,” he said.

“At first my dad was living with his mom [after rehab] until she passed away, now he doesn’t have a home. He’s homeless. My mom is living with her friend. I don’t see her that much, but it’s fine.”

Slater’s grandpa lives right down the street from him in their North St. Louis neighborhood. Since Slater is a part of the VST program, he has the option to take the bus to school every morning. But he doesn’t.

“I don’t take the bus. My aunt heard on the news that this little girl got shot waiting for her bus to come,” he said. “Walking to the corner alone, it’s pretty scary because something could happen to me.”

So, Slater’s 84-year-old grandpa drives him to school, a 30 minute drive, and picks him up after practices everyday. For Slater, this can be very stressful.

These stressful times can lead Slater to spend nights at his friend’s house in Clayton, something he enjoys.

“I think it’s fun being around Clayton.

Sometimes [my friend’s] help me out if I have money situations or need school supplies, I’ll get that from a friend. If I need somewhere to stay because of family problems, it’s pretty fun,” Slater said.

In addition to the fun he has in Clayton, Slater also gains positive role models through his participation in the District - namely Gene Gladstone, CHS head football coach and technical educator.

“Gladstone is always helping me out,” he said. ”If I need a ride to workouts or football practice, he’ll help me out with that. He’ll pick me up from my house when he lives 20 minutes away. I really appreciate him for that.” In school, Slater strives to take advantage of all that Clayton offers him, especially in sports.

“I play football, basketball, and lacrosse.

My aunt wants me to do something active and she doesn’t want me to be in the

29

house all day or in the streets like most of the people in my neighborhood. You can see that the people in my neighborhood, teenagers, too, are on hard drugs. It’s sad to see them walking around sad and with faces all messed up.”

In the classroom, Slater believes that he works towards success.

“I try to make good grades,” he said.“It’s kind of hard because Clayton is college-prep and is advanced. I try my best.”

Slater feels that he utilizes the community and educational aspects of Clayton, and feels that for those apart of VST who do not are missing an opportunity.

“People who come to school and don’t do their homework and don’t participate in class, or stuff like that, they shouldn’t be in the program. They’re wasting their time at Clayton when they can be doing that stuff at Normandy or something like that.”

Slater believes that being in the Clayton community has allowed him to get an education and opportunities that put him on the path towards success. If he were to not go to Clayton, Slater is not as confident in what his life would be. “Right now I picture myself as not like my mom and dad,” he said. “If I didn’t go to Clayton then I’d probably be like my mom and dad.”

Brooke Jones in fourth grade CHS senior Brooke Jones is what the School District of Clayton calls a “lifetime” student.

She entered the District at Glenridge Elementary when she was five-yearsold, and has been at Clayton ever since.

While in the District, Jones has been a highly-achieving student, a star-athlete, and, among many other things, a student attending Clayton schools through the VST program.

For her mother, Sharhonda Blount, placing her daughter in Clayton through

VST was an easy choice.

“It’s a good school,” she said. “It’s one of the top schools, how could you not send your kid to one of the top schools?”

Jones’ status as a lifetime student has helped her to have many positive social experiences, but the color of her skin and the way it differed from many of her classmates is something Jones was conscious of from a young age.

“Since I was here since kindergarten, I just kind of blended right in with everyone else. I never felt like I didn’t fit in. I’ve always emotionally fit in, but it was more, I guess you could say, appearance-wise, I looked different,” she said. “My best friend had straight blonde hair and mine was kinky black. And I was like, ‘How come we’re not the same? Why do I have to be different than her? All my classmates look very similar and I’m just not like that.’ But as far as emotionally and personality-wise, I always had friends.”

This is not to say that Jones has not faced racial issues while at Clayton. In fact Blount remembers a conflict regarding her daughter’s race in their first year in the District.

“In kindergarten I had to call the teacher. Brooke and another kid were teasing kids and knocked over their blocks,” Blount said. “The teacher took away Brooke’s blocks, and didn’t take away the other kid’s blocks. If I saw issues like that, I would address them.”

This incident in which Blount feels her daughter was treated differently because of her race is not isolated.

“I feel like my daughter had to work harder for the grades she earned than someone else,” Blount said. “And I think she’s had to do that because of her skin.”

Jones echoes these sentiments of differing treatment between black students and students of other races.

“As a whole, I would say [VST students are received differently] because I think people perceive people from the program a tad differently,” Jones said. “I wouldn’t say it is part of the program, but more so because of the racial difference and they know that the students are African American and from a lower class. I think they see the students on a lower level academically and class-wise so they treat students as if they are lower sometimes, but not all the time.”

Although Jones has, according to her mother, excelled in the classroom, Jones feels that her race causes for some of her

educators and classmates to pass judgement on her.

“You just feel like there’s an unspoken thought, ‘That this kid may not know what she’s talking about. She may not know her information.’ But I do. And when I go to talk to certain teachers, they just kind of dumb things down for me when I don’t need that to be the case. I’m an educated person,” Jones said.

Jones, a four-year varsity starter for Clayton’s girls’ basketball team, certainly has the statistics to support the claim that she is a standout athlete. In Blount’s opinion, her athleticism is being celebrated much more than her academic skills, which has concerned her.

“Even though she was a basketball player, the kid has a 3.7 GPA. With that being said, she was labeled, and African-American athletes are labeled as if they need a sport in order for them to be successful. She doesn’t need a sport,” Blount said. “She’s being labeled with the sports piece, and she doesn’t even talk about that unless someone brings it up.

I think for a lot of teachers, they’re going to talk about sports and say, ‘I heard you were a good basketball player.’ You’re not hearing them say, ‘You’re a good studier or a good student.’ I felt insulted by that and I did mention that to teachers.”

This is not to say that Jones has not had what she believes to be exceptional teachers while in this District; teachers who believed in her academic abilities.

“Mrs. Teson has always been a really great teacher who has boosted me up. In middle school there have been a lot of different English teachers that have told me to try for the higher routes and told me I’m a great writer,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of great experiences in terms of teachers telling me to excel. In fifth grade, Mrs. Vondras tested me for the gifted program and told me to try my hardest and even though there may be some issues I’d encounter being an African American student, just try my hardest and push for it because I have the capabilities. There has always been encouragement and I have always been grateful for it.”

Jones believes that her being a student in Clayton through VST has given her many positive opportunities and role models.

“I think it has given me motivation to better my life and better my situation for

30

myself and my family. It gives you a view of what you can have,” she said. “For example, if I were to go to a city school, I wouldn’t see upscale schooling and I wouldn’t have a lot of opportunities with kids whose parents are, for example, doctors. It’s given me more opportunities to see what my life can be.”

Although undecided about where she will attend for college next year, Jones plans on going on the pre-medical track. For Blount, Jones being a student at Clayton has molded her into a successful learner.

“I don’t have to address anything to do with academics,” Blount said. “She knows what to do. She knows what her expectations are. That’s her top priority. Clayton teaches you to build your own sense of education.”

Mahagony and Mari Donaldson in kindergarten Every morning before school, Mahogany and Mari Donaldson board a bus in their North St. Louis neighborhood at 6:50 AM. For one hour, these twin sisters, juniors at CHS, ride around St. Louis before arriving at Clayton High School, around 25 minutes before the bell rings, indicating that first-hour classes have begun.

According to Mari, VST students on these busses may engage in many different activities: sleeping, doing homework, talking, or listening to music. The Donaldson’s often elect to do the latter in their 60-minutes on the bus as the sun rises.

The Donaldson’s have been a part of the VST program since kindergarten and have been riding the bus to and from the School District of Clayton for all 12 years they have been in the District.

“I never really ever got frustrated with taking the bus because I’ve been taking it

since kindergarten,” Mahogany said.

The Donaldson’s live in what they describe as a nice predominately black neighborhood in North St. Louis.

But this does not mean they do not notice the differences between the neighborhoods they see in St. Louis City during their bus rides and Clayton neighborhoods they see as their bus gets closer and closer to its destination every morning: Clayton High School.

“We live in the good part of the city, but the other people on the bus don’t live in the nicest parts of the city. So, if you drive from our neighborhood to the other city neighborhoods to Clayton, you can definitely see a change in the neighborhoods,” Mahogany said.

Mari echoed these sentiments.

“There is a clear socioeconomic difference between the neighborhoods and a racial difference, obviously,” she said.

Although neither twin remembers much about their first few years in the District at Captain Elementary, they both began to learn about how they were able to go to the Clayton schools as they got older.

“I started to understand the program when I was in sixth grade. All through elementary school we were all just kids, but then we realized all the black kids were sort of shipped in,” Mari said. “I don’t want to say we are different, but we definitely come from different lifestyles and backgrounds.”

For Mahogany, the bus - where she and her twin have collectively spent many, many hours - is where she began to pick up on the nuances of the VST program. “[VST] made sense to me,” she said.

“When I looked around the busses, they were all black kids.”

Mahogany and Mari have an older brother who graduated from CHS through VST, and a younger sister, who is a freshman at CHS. “I have asked my mom why she chose Clayton when she could have chosen [many] other schools in the area [through VST], and she said, ‘because it’s the closest and it’s the best school,’” Mahogany said.

According to Mari, many of the other students in the Donaldson’s neighborhood participate in the VST program either by being transferred to county school districts or attending magnet schools in the city.

“If [all of my neighbors] went to the same school, we would probably be closer. We already know the people in our neighborhoods pretty well,” Mari said.

“One person, who lives down the street from us, goes to Gateway. Nobody wants to go to the city schools because they are not as good as the county or the magnet schools.”

Mahogany’s ability to attend this District is something she is grateful for.

“I like the program because we do receive a quality education out here,” Mahogany said.

More than the quality of education students in Clayton Schools may receive, both Mahogany and Mari enjoy the culture of the community in Clayton.

“We go to a good school all around.

Our school has a good atmosphere with students and teachers who have open minds,” Mari said. “We have black friends who go to different schools, and they have very different experiences with racism.

And it’s just different.”

But this does not mean either Mari or Mahogany think CHS is perfect. Mahogany is the only black student in many of

her classes.

“I am the only black person in four of my classes: Honors Biology, Math, P.E. and one other,” she said.

Mahogany is a member of Cultural Leadership in St. Louis. Through her involvement, she participated in a “school swap” and attended Metro Academy for one day earlier this school year.

“I did a ‘school swap’ at Metro and I just loved it,” she said. “There were more black people but they were smart black people.”

Although both Mahogany and Mari enjoy the diversity at Clayton, the twins agree that they would like more black students in the District.

“I like Clayton, but sometimes I wish there were more black people,” Mari said.

Right now, Mahogany is interested in attending universities where they can be around more minority students after they graduate from CHS in 2018.

“Being a minority at Clayton is like a taste of the real world. It has made me want to go to a historically black college or university. I have never gone to a primarily black school so I wanted to give it a try,” Mahagony said. “I want to see more people like me, more educated people like me.”

Mari agrees with her twin sister.

“I like Clayton and its diversity, but I would like to go to a university where I can be around people like me all of the time,” Mari said.

But Mahogany, a cheerleader, volleyball-player, Black-Student Union (BSU) member, and Mari, also on BSU and principal’s advisory council, feel that their race and their being part of VST has not prevented them from being apart of the Clayton community.

“Anybody could fit into this community,” Mari said. “There are kids for everyone here.”

For the Clayton School District, VST students represented 14.58% of the total student population in 2012-2013, in 2016-2017 the percentage is 10.47% 31

An Uncertain Future They all said yes.

On November 18, superintendents from 10 county school districts, as well as the St. Louis Public school district, met to approve another - the final - five-year extension of the VST program in St. Louis.

All 10 remaining districts voted unanimously to continue accepting new students as part of the VST program through the 2023-2024 school year.

This program has existed for the last 15 years off of extensions voted on by the participating school districts. But, according to VICC’S legal council, VST cannot survive on these extensions forever.

The VST program was never designed to last infinitely.

“In my legal opinion, [VST] can’t go forever. And I am [VICC’s] lawyer and they accept my legal advice. Plus it was set up to phase out in a 20 year period and it’ll go longer than that,” Bremer said. “It’s phasing out more gradually than what we contemplated at the time of the ‘99 settlement agreements. It’s in the settlement agreement that it’s planned to phase out, so we’re merely doing what we planned back in 1999.”

In addition to the outline from 1999, Bremer’s legal opinion is also based off of precedent set by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003.

O’Connor said, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in student body diversity] approved today.”

Bremer, as a lawyer for VICC, takes O’Connor’s projections into account.

“What can’t go in perpetuity is a racebased program,” Bremer said.

And VST, indeed, is based off of race.

Johnson, who has spent decades working as a lawyer for the NAACP in this case, does not agree with Bremer’s belief that the program must legally come to an end.

Her stance stems from her belief that funding is still in place for the VST program and that without the program, schools would be more segregated in St. Louis than they are presently, violating the standards that led to the VST program being created over 30 years ago.

“I refuse to believe that it is going to come to an end,” she said. “I really refuse to believe that.”

The reality is, unless the legal position of VICC’s legal council changes, the program will indeed end.

So, with the last students accepted through VST in the 2023-2024 school year entering in kindergarten, the last black students participating in the program will graduate CHS in 2037, with exception to siblings of VST students that are born in or before 2023, who will also be allowed to enter the District.

The question then becomes: what is next?

Currently, there are conversations around changing the conditions of the program from race to socio-economic status.

According to Bremer, the effects of a socio-economic based program could be similar to a race-based program in terms of diversifying school districts.

Since the VST program will not officially end for another 20 years, school districts have time to create a new model for diversifying their schools.

“We could end up having a non racebased program,” Bremer said. “Those can go forever.”

Possibilities for modeling the program could be using free and reduced priced lunch eligibility as a determinant for ability to participate in a socio-economic based transfer between St. Louis city and county public schools.

This means that the transfer would not necessarily be limited to bringing only black students into county schools.

Johnson is not convinced that this model

would be successful.

“I don’t think it would be that effective.

I think that diversification on the basis of socio/economic is also very important but I don’t think that it is going to capture race in quite the same way and race is a part of it,” she said.

But, school districts in St. Louis, including Clayton, are continuing to explore models such as a socio-economic based program.

“There is a commitment to continue some type of program, just differently than the way it is currently set up,” BOE President Kristin Redington said. “I have had conversations with other Board members and other members of the community because of what an appreciation for the diversity the [VST] program has brought to all of us and our students being prepared for a world environment.”

A notable element that impedes diversity in county school districts, such as Clayton, is the cost of living in these areas. A potential way to diversify Clayton’s schools would be to increase the amount of affordable housing areas within the District, an idea Doherty is interested in.

“I have asked the City Manager if the City [of Clayton] looked at a plan in terms of affordable housing. And, the Clayton has looked into this previously, yet I have not seen much change,” Doherty said.

Although there are many uncertainties regarding the future of public schools in St. Louis, one thing is certain: the VST program will end.

For Bremer, who has been instrumental in the program for decades, the slow ending of the program does not upset him because the phasing out was what was designed in the settlement agreements. This does not mean he does not take pride in his distinct involvement in the program.

“I am honored to have - I get choked up talking about it - I am honored to have had the opportunity to do this,” he said.

“It’s a law student’s dream come true to do

“The fact that we fought for it, I think, tells those children that they are worth it. that other people think this is really important, that your education is really important.”

- Veronica Johnson, NAACP Attorney

32

REVENUE GENERATED FOR THE CLAYTON SCHOOL DISTRICT THROUGH VOLUNTARY STUDENT TRANSFER

REVENUE IN MILLIONS

$6,712,094

$964,800

SCHOOL YEAR something that is very significant and in being instrumental and pulling that off that benefits so many people.”

CHS Instructional Coordinator Stacy Felps has been a part of the School District of Clayton almost as long as the VST program. For Felps, the ending of the program, and the uncertainty of diversification of the Clayton schools, is deeply saddening. But she and other leaders in the District are still looking at ways to harness the diversity in the District in the best ways they know how.

“It makes my heart hurt. We as a building are still facing how we can make this better. Nobody is taking the approach of, “It’s fading away anyway so we’re not going to do anything.” Nobody is doing that,” Felps said. “I think there have been a lot of challenges and it hasn’t all been good. But thinking in terms of opportunity, it’s going to be a loss of opportunity.”

David Aiello, CHS psychology teacher, has been a part of the District since 1985. In terms of the success of the program, Aiello is less convinced that VST accomplished diversification in the ways it sought out to.

“I don’t know if all the costs, all the efforts, all the failures equate to the successes that have happened. I don’t know,” he said. “And I don’t know if this is one of

those things where you have to have more losses than you’re going to have successes because there’s been 200 years of institutional racism in this country and you’ve got to start breaking that down even if it’s going to be some two steps back to make one step forward.”

An element of the program that Aiello believes was not executed as well as desired is the magnet school program.

Magnet schools in the city were originally supposed to be places of learning where white students could be transferred to in similar ways to black students from the city transferred to the county.

In the 35 years VST has existed, around 7,000 students, of many races, have attended these schools whereas over 50,000 black students have been transferred to county schools through the program.

“The whole promise of magnet schools, I think we gave up on it too fast and too quickly and we didn’t set it up for success as well as should have,” he said.

“The whole idea of having suburban white kids coming into the city, as much emphasis should have been placed on that as bringing black kids out to the white suburbs. And it didn’t, it just didn’t. The magnet schools have turned into where the smart black kids go who live in the city

33

and that was never the goal and we gave up on that way to quickly and too easily.”

If a new program for diversifying schools is not created, then students of all races will go to school based on where they live, if they are part of public school education.

“The basic rule in the state is that you go to school where you live. So unless you change where people live, if our housing is segregated then our schools become segregated as well,” Glaser said.

Although the uncertainty of what the future holds for St. Louis public education may be daunting, the effects of the VST program so far in its 35 year existence is undeniable.

“Those children, you think about generations of children who went to that school system before Arthur filed suit, before Mrs. Liddell filed suit, you think about generations of children who went through segregated schools and received an inferior education and while [VST] may have not reversed that, [VST] certainly improved the opportunities that are available for those children and just the fact that we fought for it, I think, tells those children that they are worth it, that other people think this is really important, that your education is really important,” Johnson said. “So take that to heart.” .

We Fit Everybody

Serving everyone with resident rates for all School District of Clayton families.

Center C C The Center of Clayton

314-290-8500 | 50 Gay Ave., Clayton, MO 63105

www . ce nt e r o f cl a y t o n. c om

Students who are interested in French language and culture can join the Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/centrefrancophoneinstlouis/

ATHLETE PROFILE

FRANKLY THE BEST Senior Sam Frank stands out for his hustle on the court.

BY DANIEL COHEN / reporter “Sam Frank would play basketball all day and night while skipping meals if he could,” said Ty Cochran, head coach of the Clayton High School boy’s varsity basketball team.

Ever since Frank, a senior at CHS, can remember having a basketball hoop in his driveway, he has played the sport. While growing up, Frank played on basketball teams at the St. Louis Jewish Community center, among playing other sports such as baseball.

However, it was not until the middle of elementary school that Frank began to play on a competitive basketball team and soon after, decided to quit all other sports.

As Frank entered his freshman year at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, he had an eye opening experience. “Before high school, I was bigger than everybody and everything seemed easy to me, so that’s when I realized I really need to put work in and work harder than I was,” Frank said.

After playing on the freshman basketball team at Ladue and averaging a couple of points per game, Frank transferred to CHS. During his sophomore year, he played on the JV team with hopes of making improvement so he would be ready to play varsity ball the next two years.

These past two years, Frank has been a part of the varsity team and has seen his role on the team evolve. Last year, while a junior, he assumed the role of a shooter and rebounder.

Now, with a new head coach this year, who has a more defensive lineup than the coach last year, Frank no longer starts as much as last year. However, when he comes into the game, Frank fulfills the primary role of a shooter rather than a rebounder.

Although Frank has played this sport for nearly his entire life, just like any athlete, he is not perfect. From shooting and dribbling to athleticism and sportsmanship, there is always something for every basketball player to improve on. “If you’re not making 100% of your shots, there’s always something to get better at,” Frank said.

By knowing that there is always something to improve on, Frank has developed a

strong work ethic. In the offseason, he will go to the gym and shot 500-700 shots depending on the workout. Then later in the day, he returns to the gym and lifts weights for over an hour. After lifting, Frank will do another skill workout, which consists of shooting about another 300-400 shots.

During the season, his class schedule allows for him to arrive to the gym and shoot for about an hour before practice and then stay for another 30 minutes after practice.

In addition to knowing that he can always improve on his game, part of Frank’s unique work ethic has been created through inspiration. While growing up, his biggest role model has been his older brother. Frank regularly saw his brother working hard and improving on the court and wanted to be just like him.

Fortunately, Frank’s work ethic does not go unnoticed. Cochran said, “his work ethic is up there with some of the best as far as players I’ve been around.”

As Frank is a senior and has been enjoying his last year in the Clayton basketball program, he has developed a leadership role.

Whether on or off the court, he values leading by example.

One way Frank does this is when he is working out in the gym, he does not just work on improving his own skills, but will help and teach younger players in the Clayton basketball program.

“A lot of older players don’t really talk to the younger basketball players but he will actually go out of his way to help everyone,” said Jayanth Palamand, a sophomore basketball player at CHS. Since Frank is a senior and his high school career will end after this season, he has hopes of continuing his basketball career.

Currently, he is receiving offers and interests from a couple colleges and universities such as William Woods University in Fulton, Missouri and Central College in Iowa. “Basketball is the best sport, ball is life,” Frank said.

SPORTS 35

Photo by Carrie Niswonger

SPORTS

PA R A D - I C E AT B U S C H

BY KEVIN ROSENTHAL / chief managing editor and SOPHIE BARNES / page editor

The Blues-Blackhawks matchup commenced with fireworks on Jan. 2, 2017. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/TNS) The Winter Classic is not supposed to be comparable to any other event in sports history.

Build a regulation-sized professional ice hockey rink within a regulation-sized professional baseball field and the setup exists for one of the most bizarre, compelling and romantic sports settings possible.

Then surround the sports pit inside a sports pit with 46,000 St. Louis fans - each gaping equally confused and amused at the indescribable landscape before them, each with blood still boiling from the NFL cartel serving as accomplice to Stan Kroenke’s foul relocation of the St. Louis Rams the year before, each united in a quest for their boys in blue to score more hockey goals at

a baseball stadium than the always-mighty Blackhawks - and a once-in-a-lifetime experience in the form of the 2017 NHL Winter Classic occurs.

Puck drop.

A dense fog obscures the view of the Gateway Arch.

Nobody is texting. Everyone is just happy to occupy this space. For once, no distractions are necessary. It's all eyes on the spectacle.

This is only a regular season hockey game, but this is so much more.

Since their inception in 1967, the Blues have unquestionably heightened the spirit of St. Louis. With more palpable fan support than ever by a market celebrating its fiftieth

SPORTS 36

season with an NHL franchise, it was due time for St. Louis, one of the most underrated hockey cities in the U.S., to host the Winter Classic.

The Winter Classic has been a tradition since 2008 when the NHL brought hockey to Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, NY. The matchup between the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins achieved the highest television rating of any NHL event in 33 years.

Since 2008, the Winter Classic, played each year on Jan. 1 or Jan. 2, has become progressively more spectacular.

What one who is inhaling the electricity of the 2017 Winter Classic could easily neglect, however, is all the labor which was im-

SPORTS perative to configuring the sports pit within a sports pit.

On Dec. 15, just over two weeks before the events began, the Globe talked to St. Louis Cardinals' President Bill DeWitt III and St. Louis Blues' owner Tom Stillman after they delivered the million-dollar Busch Stadium rink generator. Make no mistake: the two multi-millionaires with more plutocratic prowess than anyone in St, Louis did not carry the generator with their bare hands - the generator, the same size as that which powers the Scottrade Center, was hauled into a behemoth eighteen-wheeler truck driven by the two owners who, after manifesting cheerfully and suddenly at Ballpark Village through a hazy December fog, were greeted by a swarm of obscure, in-theknow reporters.

Bill DeWitt III has witnessed hundreds of baseball games at Busch Stadium III, but at Ballpark Village just weeks before the Winter Classic, he reflected on other major events which make the stadium a dynamic home.

"The versatility of the building is great.

We have had concerts, soccer, football, and now hockey," DeWitt III said. "The role of technology is really impressive."

For Tom Stillman, a native of Minneapo-

lis, MN where children freely play hockey on frozen ponds in the winter, hosting the Winter Classic is his greatest fantasy in action.

Stillman ached alongside St. Louisans last year when the Rams unjustifiably skipped town for Hollywood, but for him, the Winter Classic is the ideal opportunity one year later for St. Louis to show its resilience as a sports town.

"We united after that event. This city showed its internal strength and people supported our two franchises more than they already had. We are working together to keep that effect going," Stillman said. "You look back at that unfortunate time for St. Louis last year but then you look now at this great festival of people coming together."

Chris Zimmerman, President and Chief of Business Operations for the St. Louis Blues echoed DeWitt III and Stillman from a business standpoint while also acknowledging what makes the Winter Classic mystical from the perspective of the fans.

"For us to have this game the same year as our fiftieth anniversary is really fantastic," Zimmerman said. "The great thing about getting to play outdoors is it's a return to how lots of players started playing the game and so there's a magic to playing outdoors."

Not only did the eminent Blues-Black-

Above, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III. Right, Chairman of the St. Louis Blues Tom Stillman (Photos by Michael Melinger).

SPORTS 37

hawks rivalry provide flair for the Winter Classic, but sparks also flew on the last day of 2016 during the alumni game wherein Blues' legends Wayne Gretzsky and Brett Hull, among others, defeated former Blackhawk greats 8-7.

The Busch Stadium matchup marked the third time Chicagoans watched their Blackhawks perform in the Winter Classic, but the 2017 Winter Classic was a completely new experience for St. Louis fans.

On gameday, although the thick fog clouded NBC cameras, the enthusiasm inside and outside the stadium in St. Louis was tangible.

Outside the stadium, friends and families gathered at restaurants and in their homes, ecstatic about hockey, Inside the stadium, Busch entered a frenzy when Blues' slugger Vladimir Tarasenko scored two third period goals en route to a 4-1 Blues Winter Classic win.

The 2017 Winter Classic was nothing short of an epic celebration. The only factor which may have elevated the festivities is Cardinals and Blues reel during pre-game and intermission.

But overall the 2017 Winter Classic is best described in three words: unity, family, victory.

HISTOR(UGB)Y

BY MICHAEL BERNARD and DANIEL COHEN “He passed [the ball] to me. I was getting closer and closer to the line. The other defender tackled my ankles,” CHS history teacher Josh Meyers said. “My head smacked the ground, and I was knocked unconscious.”

As Meyers scored his first try, the equivalent of a touchdown in football in his rugby career at the University of Missouri, he also suffered his first concussion with the team.

Despite the clear injury, Meyers continued to play the rest of the game.

Even though this injury was unfortunate, Meyers chose to see the beauty of the concussion. When a player on the rugby team scores his first try, he has to strip down naked and dance around while the other athletes pour their drinks on player. Due to his ailment, Meyers was able to escape the tradition.

Meyers began his rugby career as a freshman at Mizzou with no previous experience.

The first week of school, one of Meyer’s high school buddies persuaded him to come to a practice for the club sport.

“I had heard a little bit about it and I’m like, ‘I’m gonna get destroyed,’” Meyers said.

“I went out for one practice and fell in love with the sport.”

When Meyers commenced his career with the sport, he was one of the few freshman on the team. Although he was not one of the biggest guys on the team, he was quite fast and had better legs than most of the other players.

Meyers was given the position of fly-half, which is essentially the quarterback of the backfield on the pitch. This position is generally given to a smaller and faster player.

Meyers’ initial instinct to join the team proved to be the right decision as he felt the team embrace him warmly right away. Even though Meyers had just joined the squad, he was quickly able to surmise that the group was more of a brotherhood than just a team.

Although Meyers was not in a fraternity, the team felt like a fraternity environment to him as Meyers would regularly hang out with the team.

“One of the things that I loved about rugby was way more than any other sport that I’ve played there’s truly a sense of community,” Meyers said.

As Meyers looks back on the rugby team

SPORTS 38

at Mizzou, he admires the fact that he felt part of a rugby culture. After every game, the two opposing teams would pass time and have a drink with each other no matter the score of the game.

“We would sing songs together or go to a local restaurant. We would intermingle.

It’s almost like a brotherhood,” he said. “You beat the crap out of each other on the pitch, but when the game is over let’s drink [and] sing songs.”

According to Meyers, singing was a large part of the rugby lifestyle. The rowdy and crude songs were not specific to just Mizzou, they were universal through the rugby community. Meyers felt like he belonged to the unique culture right away.

“It’s a brutal game, but rugby players generally tend to not get into drunken fights,” Meyers said.

The team had two practices a week “We traveled quite a bit,” Meyers said.

“We played men’s club teams. Us little college teams would play the men’s teams.”

The team would also play other schools such as Rolla and Truman State.

“We had a coach from South Africa. He

played for the national team in South Africa.

He was this really intense, super tiny dude,” Meyers said. “He rode me relentlessly. He never called me by my name, he only called me ‘stupid.’”

Meyers took all the yelling and excessive criticism from the coach as a compliment.

Meyers was told by his friend on the team that being yelled at by the coach was a sign that he thought Meyers had potential. Eventually, when he felt the Meyers was a well established player, the coach changed his name from ‘stupid’ to ‘Josh.’

According to Meyers, this vicious sport can be incredibly dangerous.

“People tape their ears back to keep their ears from getting ripped off,” Meyers said.

“You can use three-quarter inch metal spikes on your cleats.”

Right before the Mizzou rugby team went on to play their first game at Westerns, a regional rugby competition between schools, Meyers, while watching a game before his, learned how important these tips are.

“The opposing [player] walked over to the medical tent. He had blood running down his face. I knew something was up with the side of his face.”

Meyers continued to watch as the player removed his hand from the side of his face.

“His ear was stuck to his hand,” Meyers said. “It was attached by one small piece of skin.”

Like the majority of college rugby players, Meyers suffered numerous injuries him-

self during his four year career.

In rugby, there are certain instances in the game where purposeful jabs with a players cleat spike is allowed. Meyers would often finish a game with marks up and down his legs from cleats. During one game, Meyers got cut from a cleat while scoring a try.

This cut led to a staph infection that Meyers did not know existed.

“My back was hurting really bad and I hadn’t been able to sleep for a day and a half. I went to the student health center.

[The doctor] happened to touch my leg and I went, ‘ow.’ He looked at it and it was red and swollen.

Meyers also was very delirious from a fever. However, he was unable to make the connection between his hurt leg and his malady. “[The doctor] goes, ‘you’re going to the hospital immediately.’ They admitted me right there. They got me on IV’s,” Meyers said. “The doctor said if [I] had waited another 24 hours there was a good chance [I] would’ve lost my leg.”

Although Meyers had a prominent role on his rugby team at Mizzou, he realized that he would need to train harder and devote more time to the sport if he wanted pursue a career in rugby. Meyers also was aware that it would be very difficult to support himself financially as a rugby player.

Meyers did not always plan to teach immediately after college. He originally wanted to make millions as a businessman, retire

and teach high school. However, he quickly learned that this was not the route in store for him.

“The first day of class [of] my sophomore year I walked into the accounting class and I sat there for about 20 minutes. [The professor] assigned 60 pages of the accounting textbook for homework. I was like, ‘this is ridiculous,’” Meyers said. “I stood up and walked out of class straight to the registrar’s office and changed my major to education.”

Meyers career did not end after his four years at Mizzou. After graduating college, he came to St. Louis.

He joined the St. Louis Ramblers, a St. Louis based rugby team that was founded in 1932. The Ramblers are the second oldest active men’s rugby club.

Meyers sported their colors green and white during his time with the team.

Meyers suffered his third and final concussion with the St. Louis Ramblers. After this head injury, he and his wife decided it was time to hang up the boots for good.

“I do wonder if my memory has been affected by [the concussions],” Meyers said. “I knew enough at the time to know that multiple concussions aren’t good. I was generally worried about brain damage.”

As Meyers reminisces about his glory days on the rugby pitch at Mizzou, he admires both the warrior type culture on the pitch and the civility it inspires between rivals.

“Rugby is a barbarian game played by gentlemen,” Meyers said.

PHOTOS FROM JOSH MEYERS SPORTS 39

REVIEW

WICKED GREENZ

BY RICHARD CHENG / reporter

Photo by Sarah Schmidt This past weekend, I was excited to visit Wicked Greenz, a new health-conscious restaurant in downtown Clayton.

As I don’t look at my diet with a critical eye often, I hoped that the restaurant would give me a new perspective into eating healthier while still enjoying meals.

Chris Sedlak, owner of Wicked Greenz, recently opened the restaurant to make eating healthy foods easier for the public.

Accompanied by chef Justin Hafley and operations expert Matt Ratz, Sedlak struggled to find time for healthy meals in his busy schedule.

Wanting to create a fast, casual place that offered balanced meals, Sedlak created Wicked Greenz in 2016.

I enjoyed the decor. Clean and elegant, Wicked Greenz is comprised of the register, tables, and a long aisle where the food is made.

The chalk art added a comfortable atmosphere to the restaurant.

Looking at the menu, I was immediately impressed by the diverse dishes offered.

From exotic Asian salads to salads with a

Mexican flare, Wicked Greenz offers a wide variety of menu options considering they only serve salads.

The restaurant offers all salads as either bowled or rolled into a wrap. While the menu’s variety is commendable, the salads are extremely expensive. I opted for the Avocobbo wrap, a combination of a traditional cobb salad of blue cheese, bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes and avocados.

I also added the chef ’s recommendation of herb-roasted chicken, which amounted to roughly eleven dollars.

The wrap was served in halves with a basil ranch sauce on the side. After taking a bite, I noticed the quality of the ingredients.

Each ingredient flaunted its freshness and quality.

In terms of taste, the wrap seemed like an average cobb salad. I was also disappointed at the lack of avocado; there was almost an unrecognizable amount of this key ingredient in the wrap.

The name “Cobbo” seemed more appropriate for this dish.

As I continued to eat the wrap, I began

REVIEW 40

to grow overwhelmed by the cream of the basil ranch as well as the richness of the blue cheese and bacon.

Surprisingly, I found myself struggling to finish the dish and feeling nauseous, something I would not expect after eating a “healthy” meal.

Considering I ordered the regular size and almost always finish my meals, I was confused as to why a supposedly health-conscious restaurant would serve such a hefty and rich serving for the “regular” size.

A “large” size seems more appropriate for the dish I was served.

I was disappointed that Wicked Greenz would label a dish I couldn’t finish as the regular size instead of making the smaller and cheaper option the regular size.

While my personal experience at Wicked Greenz offered excellent ingredients and a nice decor, the overpriced menu options and ordinary taste fail to entice me into eating there a second time. There is no reason to frequent this establishment when a Chipotle across the street offers a cheaper, tastier, and possibly healthier alternative.

REVIEW

ROGUE ONE

BY JUSTIN GUILAK / reporter

Photo from public domain/wikimedia commons The newest installment of the classic Star Wars series continues to bring awe to its massive fan base, as well as millions of other viewers.

“Rogue One” takes place between Revenge of the Sith (Episode III) and A New Hope (Episode IV), with the Rebel Alliance struggling against the increasing power of the Galactic Empire.

The Rebels seek to destroy the Death Star superweapon by capturing a copy of the plans, leaving the mission in the hands of a few spies, the main characters of the movie.

One could consider the film to be a well-acted ensemble cast movie, but the film centers around Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones.

Jones’s masterful performance of Erso’s hardened personality yet certain weaknesses provide the viewer with the sense that she’s not an all powerful being like the Jedi.

It’s also good to mention that the casting for the film is diverse, something to be high-

ly applauded, proving to the viewers, especially children, that anybody can be a hero, regardless of background.

“Rogue One” separates itself in many ways from other Star Wars movies, which only makes it more interesting.

Primarily, the story stands out, as it revolves around common Rebel soldiers rather than the well-known Jedi.

In fact, “Rogue One” has little lightsaber action or use of “The Force” but makes up for this with gritty war scenes, something that franchise has not seen.

Paired with the new choice to shoot digitally rather than in film, its breathtaking shots of space stations, an all new tropical environment, ships, planets, battles and explosions amaze all viewers.

Other than a few creepy CGI faces and funny-looking aliens, “Rogue One” definitely holds the best cinematography and visual

REVIEW 41

effects in the Star Wars saga.

Despite the overwhelming greatness of the movie, “Rogue One” still has a few flaws.

Primarily, the script feels too cheesy and clichéd at certain points, with a bad double pun from a serious character and one-dimensional characters.

The all-new soundtrack from composer Michael Giacchino has less memorable pieces than the originals, but is still surprisingly beautiful for being composed in only four weeks.

Ultimately, despite some poor writing moments, “Rogue One” is a great film.

Although it may not feel like a traditional Star Wars film, it proves that the Star Wars universe has not died down one bit, and shows that the franchise is just getting started.

As this franchise continues to succeed, we would like to honor the great actress who helped start it all, Carrie Fisher.

OPINION

E D U C AT I O N

G

A

P

Olivia Joseph visits Vashon High School, a St.Louis public school and offers her perspective on the growing education gap.

BY OLIVIA JOSEPH / page editor This past November, I participated in a school swap through Cultural Leadership, which is a program that educates about social justice through the African-American and Jewish experience.

I spent a day at Vashon High School, which is a predominantly African American St. Louis public school.

Going into this school swap, I knew that education inequity was a problem in St. Louis, but I didn’t know the extent of the education gap was until I entered VHS and experienced the average school day of a VHS student.

As I entered VHS at 8:00 a.m., I was greeted by metal detectors, which every student is required to go through when they enter the school.

Next, I was introduced to my guide, a junior at VHS who I would shadow the whole day. As I followed her down the halls, all eyes were on me because I was the only white kid in the school.

“Are you visiting?” A teacher asked me.

“Yes,” I told her. “Good luck...” she said to me as she glanced around the classroom.

While walking around the school with my guide, she gave me a few tips and facts for the day: don’t walk into the school bathroom, and don’t go into the daycare, which is for the students’ children.

My guide, who was biracial, explained how she didn’t really fit in with the students at VHS. She transferred to VHS last year

from Hazelwood, when she moved with her grandma. When describing VHS, she said, “People in St. Louis label Vashon as the dumb school, so we uphold to that. We don’t work, this is not a smart school. The sophomores are reading a fifth grade level,” she said.

When I asked about the workload, she said that she hasn’t taken a real test the whole year she has attended VHS, and she hasn’t written any essays for her classes. She explained that since she’s mixed, she has the ability to choose whether she wants to be more white or more black.

At her old school she was white, but at VHS she is black. “I miss being white,” she said.

“I’m done being black.”

In all the classes I attended, the teachers stopped teaching twenty minutes into class because the students refused to learn.

As students left, went on their phones and fought, each teacher stopped teaching as a result of frustration and lack of hope.

“Here the work is too easy,” my guide said. “You fly right through it. They give us middle school work.”

Finding teachers to work at VHS is also a challenge. With a much lower salary than other public school teachers are offered, teachers must be committed to being culturally responsive, as well as supportive and caring towards the large population of students who lack a traditional family structure at home.

OPINION 42

“Currently we have about a 33 percent homeless population, and 80 percent of freshman are reading below grade level. Attracting staff that is committed to working with this population is a struggle,” Brenda Smith, freshman-class principal said.

The immense difference in resources, learning levels, and student population between VHS and CHS can be traced to racially based housing policy that dates back to the twentieth century.

While property segregation was originally enforced to segregate African Americans that had moved to the St. Louis area, segregation in neighborhoods is still present today. Since families tend to send their children to schools in their neighborhoods, the kids from high-income families afford schools with good resources, and the kids from low income families attend schools that lack these resources.

While schools like CHS spend $19,681 per student, which is above the natural average, schools like VHS, which are located in predominantly black areas spend far less than the national average on each student.

Measures must be taken to end the segregation between schools in St. Louis.

Whether they be more programs like the desegregation busing program, or a housing-based program put forth, racially based schools like VHS will continue to fall behind county schools like CHS, which continues to progress.

OPINION

CLAYTON’S CIVIC C L I M AT E Managing Editor Nicholas Lee calls for dialogue with the political minority in Clayton and our community.

BY NICHOLAS LEE / managing editor On Nov. 8, Donald Trump became our nation’s president-elect.

On Nov. 9, I found myself in a school environment that was quite visibly upset.

Students and teachers described the election as a tragedy and expressed the emotional toll the previous night had taken.

As I am politically liberal, I too was disappointed by the election results. However, I could not help but empathize with my peers who are Trump supporters, a demographic that is very much the minority in a community as progressive as Clayton.

In many of my classes, the election was not even mentioned directly but was offhandedly referenced or implied as a disaster and hardship we must overcome.

In other classes, teachers tried to console the class, saying how even dark times will pass.

Both students and teachers expressed disbelief and even anger that people actually voted for Donald Trump.

It was enough to make any conservative student feel more than a little alienated.

While upset democrats should absolutely be able to express their disappointment and concern for the future, we as a school community should make a conscious effort

not to isolate anyone based upon political ideology.

In an increasingly hostile and polarized political climate, it is important to avoid widening the rifts that already exist.

Instead, we need to strive for greater understanding of different views, most importantly those that contradict our own.

Greater understanding of different political ideologies can only come through open discussion. However, the environment of CHS following the election was far from open as teachers and students spoke in a manner that assumed their peers shared their sense of disappointment, and thus the same political beliefs. Such assumptions can be harmful in silencing minority voices and preventing any real discussion.

In an educational institution such as CHS, it is especially important to welcome different beliefs, so that debate and productive discussion can ultimately lead to understanding.

Admittedly, it is difficult to foster balanced discussion and debate in a community as homogeneously liberal as Clayton.

Whenever any conservative student speaks openly, they know that they will be questioned and challenged by the majority

OPINION 43

of their peers.

However, those of us in the liberal majority should recognize the courage it takes to express an unpopular opinion and be willing learn about opposing viewpoints.

Otherwise, we risk alienating individuals with minority opinions to the point where they do not feel comfortable expressing themselves, essentially cutting off any discussion or understanding.

It is also necessary to acknowledge that the popular political beliefs are not automatically just or morally right.

Similarly, the unpopular opinions are not necessarily ignorant or racist.

There were many legitimate reasons for supporting either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump this past election, just as there were also many ignorant rationales for supporting either candidate.

As social media encourages the proliferation of extremist views and news sources, it is increasingly important that we interact and engage with people who hold different beliefs than our own.

Until we can have open and respectful discussion with all people, we will never have any greater understanding or unity in our society.

PRO/CON

Adminstrative Action

Should the school adminstation involve itself in the

BY SAMANTHA ZEID / page editor Student browses through her instagram feed (Sarah Schmidt).

When asked to picture the typical school bully, the majority of people picture a 1950’s style jock, complete with a letterman jacket and gang behind him, pinning a nerdy peer against a locker.

With the constantly changing American culture, the jock has gone virtual.

Schools across the country have taken a strict stance against bullying.

At Clayton, we pride ourselves on a policy of intolerance for bullying and harassment. Students are taught from preschool onward about virtues and what it means to be a good friend, so it is only natural that they are held to these standards outside of school as well.

As times have changed so has bullying, and thus so has the role of the school within American culture. However, bullying can no longer be solved by physical intervention; simply pushing two kids away from each other isn’t going to cut it.

Now, teens are protected by the walls of cyberspace.

It is easier to verbally and virtually abuse than ever before, and this has recently been proven at our own school.

Clearly the values taught from day one in the Clayton School District do not transcend the school building walls as well as we hoped.

As bullying takes a new, digital form, the approach needs to change with the times.

I am not suggesting that teachers get fake social media accounts and patrol the web, we have seen that practice descend into another kind of administrative mess. I am encouraging the district to take disciplinary action

against students who bully others online, if the administration determines this by a student complaint and, thus, subsequent investigation.

There is a clear debate about how much a school administration should get involved, regarding the outside life of a student. Although students are technically not involved in a school related activity if they are posting outside the school building; their harsh words affect the performance and health of other students. It is for this reason that the school has a right and a duty to get involved.

The relationship between teachers and students has changed over several decades.

They are now expected to help students in more than just an academic sense. Faculty are increasingly responsible for the well being of their students and are expected to model appropriate behavior.

Teachers can play an important role in combatting modern bullying by simply being a support system for students who are struggling, as well as by modeling appropriate behavior.

At Clayton especially, students respect their teachers not just for their role, but for who they are as people. In my personal experience, certain teachers have helped me get through very dark times, regardless of the cause.

Clayton is a key example of the modern role of the school in the lives of students.

The administration outlined its core values in the student planner, emphasizing the importance of contacting adults when stu-

OPINION 44

dents need support. One of such values was listed as, “Inclusiveness by valuing individual differences and the contributions of a diverse student body and staff.” This core value was followed immediately by the pledge of, “accountability by aligning our actions and resources with our stated objectives and taking responsibility for the outcomes.”

Clearly, the District believes that it is imperative to do whatever it takes to provide students with the diverse and accepting environment which is promised. Later in the student planner, administrators continued to write that, “Students who experience difficulties with other students are to seek the assistance of adults in the school.”

Clayton has a reputation for being a place of inclusiveness and comfort. Faculty are not only hired to teach their students, but to make them feel secure. The school invites students to feel comfortable enough to talk to teachers and administrators about things that happen outside of school, in order to ensure that they get the best education inside of school. This applies to things that happen to students, by students, on social media.

Online harassment affects the way they function in school. When someone is being targeted, their whole life shifts.

When students glance at their phone, it is not simply their emotions that are altered; their self confidence shakes. Students no longer have the same ability to participate and excel academically when they are just trying to feel good about themselves. Bullying and outside of school issues affect the health and overall well-being of the student.

The school has a responsibility to care for the student enough to take action.

School in modern culture is just as much about social education as well as the core classes. Students who are not treating others appropriately need to be dealt with the same way they would if they refused to participate academically.

While traditionally school was not meant to engage in other aspects of students’ lives other than in their education, students now are being educated on social skills and deserve to be cared for by the place and people that they spend the majority of their waking hours with.

PRO/CON

Leave it to the Learners

social media conflicts and quarrels of the student body?

BY MARTIN SHARPE / page editor

Two students share posts from their social media feeds (Sarah Schmidt).

Over the past decade, social media has gained significant grounds in terms of use among high school students in the United States and around the world.

Programs such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are just a few examples, all allowing for instantaneous sharing of both photos and messages.

While there are upsides to having the ability to remain in constant contact with both friends and strangers, several negative facets arise on daily levels, including instances of cyberbullying and child pornography, both of which are unimpeded in programs such as Snapchat, which allows users to send pictures to one another.

These sent photos can only be viewed for up to ten seconds on the receiver's phone or device until it expires and is unable to be seen again.

Like thousands of other high schools around America, students use these apps on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, keeping them in a constant stream of exposure to people they may may follow or have added on the various programs. This makes these users vulnerable to the said downsides of these apps.

But the question of school involvement and punishment arises for instances of cyberbullying and other cases of online ex-

ploitation. Many would argue that of course, why shouldn’t school administration become involved in certain cases of social media extortion?

While some may support this viewpoint, it is important to consider the varying degrees that subjects like cyberbullying occur in.

High School relationships often give rise to these cases of cyberbullying, which is a complete waste of time for the school administration to become involved with.

While students may hurt each other's feelings with things like break ups, adolescent relationships must be kept within the appropriate spectrum of reality.

In this I mean that we are in high school, things like grades and sports and friends are important, but I’m sorry to say that things like relationships should probably take the backburner during the four most important years in youth schooling.

Other things like heated political arguments or discrepancies between students also can lead to students consulting school administrators for help, but in most cases if not all, mature handling of the situation will resolve the issues residing among social

OPINION 45

media. Apps nowadays make it as simple as clicking a button to either block or remove friends, which separates the user from whoever they may be upset by.

With this being said, it is also important to remember the Clayton environment specifically, in that it promotes self-reliance and independence. By propagating these qualities and giving every student ample opportunity to become independent students, Clayton both matures students in both an academic and social sense. Certain things must be worked out by students, as life after high school contains little to no guidance in terms of student-administration intimacy.

But this doesn’t mean you should ever go to the school for help with social media, especially in cases of illegal activities that are either documented on or facilitated through social media.

Underage drinking and other occurrences that are illegal should be either reported to the application developers or school administration, often times both.

All in all, school administration should not have a reason to become involved in the personal affairs of students except for select cases, as to uphold the Clayton legacy of student independence and autonomy that makes our school one of the best in the state.

OPINION

S TA F F E D : L E A R N I N G F R O M D I V E R S I T Y Do we utilize our rich demographics for not just our advertising brochures, but for fostering true cultural awareness and discussion?

The Clayton school community is consumed largely by its focus on college preparation. And few would protest the importance and necessity of college preparation and, more generally, the process of preparing students for the challenges of their prospective career paths, sometimes referenced as “the real world.”

The phrase “the real world” should be considered within the inherent skepticism of quotation marks because in claiming to prepare students for “the real world,” the message that can easily be received, intentional or not, is that Clayton students reside within some sheltered utopia in isolation from society’s most pressing problems.

A keen, attentive eye would observe the exact opposite.

In just the past few months, Clayton has been given some of its most important tests. The tests did not survey proficiency in mathematics or the sciences, but instead all addressed one central question: As a school community, how do you respond to and learn from difficult situations and adversity?

In many ways, the Clayton school community failed the test.

One major test to our ability to handle and learn from the problems it faces occurred when a student brought a loaded gun to school.

For an event so large in its implications for the entire Clayton community, the District’s response was rather inconsequential. Our failure was not in the way it handled discipline of the individual student, but rather in its unwillingness to capitalize on the opportunity the situation presented to both catalyze further discussion and to disprove the popular notion that Clayton is somehow immune to deep-rooted societal issues like gun violence.

Instead, over the school intercom system, our principal reasserted his trust of the community and placated any potential concerns the student body might have.

Except for an email from which students were excluded, this two minute dialogue would mark the entirety of the school’s response.

Intended or not, the underlying message sent by the District’s response was that this major incident was an isolated one resulting entirely from a single student’s misthink and irrationality.

Clayton is in a unique situation to forge social progress; so while this may be the first time a student has brought a loaded gun into the halls of Clayton High School, it’s certainly not the first time a St. Louis community has been confronted by the reality of gun violence in America. Situations like these are ones that illuminate the potential downside of Clayton’s academic fervor and numerical obsessions.

To so rapidly dismiss a situation the magnitude of this one is to submit to the status quo of adversity, to neglect the position our school community is in to make change and to understand the deeply-embedded roots of the problems that we face as a nation.

Our infatuation with test booklets and red scantron sheets may certainly result in the academic preparedness students and parents come to expect from a Clayton education, but, at the same time, it threatens our very willingness to utilize our community for the greater good that extends far beyond the numbers we strive for.

Another test administered to the Clayton school community emerged from a situation on social media, in which students used the platform of Instagram to popularize anti-semitic and racist comments toward some of their peers.

Again, in his handling of the event, Dr. Gutchewsky resorted to the platform of technology, this time appearing on the SmartBoard screens in each classroom, and putting words to his visible frustration with the situation and again the disciplinary efforts the school would make to resolve it.

While most would deem disciplinary action necessary as part of each of the solutions to the aforementioned situations, the test is failed when it becomes the entire solution, when we, as a school community, fail to be introspective, to see the incident as not just an isolated misstep but perhaps instead a result of some systematic flaw.

In fact, in bold on Clayton’s mission statement is the value of accountability, which reads “We model and promote aligning our actions and resources with our stated objectives and taking responsibility for the outcomes.” Had the District kept this statement in mind, one would have expected a more self-examining, contemplative response in which the administration would truly have

“taken responsibility” for the actions of a few of its students, which would presumably include some form of self-reflection to supplement disciplinary actions.

In other words, staying true to this purported mission statement would entail analyzing the WHY, to grapple with the underlying causes, from a macro, system-wide level, that culminated in an incident in which the weight of racism and anti-semitism was unrecognized or misunderstood.

Clayton’s demographics alone make it a place ripe with opportunities to generate valuable dialogue and promote inclusiveness; but first we must do away with the frequent notion that we are a community built on some form of utopianism, and instead embrace the exact opposite – that we are a place infested with opportunities to learn from the imperfections of the world we belong to.

That is not to say that we must do away with the things that make us who we are – the intellectual curiosity, the drive, the far-reaching passion.

At a certain point, though, we must ask the hard questions: Are we structured in such a way that reinforces more than just academic achievement – is it possible to dedicate time – structured or spontaneous – toward some form of school-wide discussion, especially after the occurrence of situations like the ones previously mentioned? Do we utilize our rich demographics for not just our advertising brochures, but for fostering true cultural awareness and discussion? Do our academic curricula consider our unique position geographically nestled in the metropolitan area of one of the most divided and racially segregated cities in the country?

These are just a few of the questions provoked in part by the school’s recent handling of a few major events; that said, one common theme laced throughout is that we have work to do.

And no one doubts Clayton’s capacity to do the work nor its genuine interest, as a school community, in being part of the solution to the numerous problems our community faces. Because, after all, the truth is that there has never been a more important time to invest that same intellectual curiosity and energy seemingly innate to Clayton students into solving the problems facing our messy and complicated world. .

Q&A

Q&A: MARY BETH TINKER

BY KATHERINE SNELLING, MARY SNELLING, and SARAH STEMMLER A talk with Mary Beth Tinker, whose role in the Tinker vs.

Des Moines case impacted scholastic freedom of speech for years to come.

The Globe has the great privilege of being able to inform the community about current issues without the threat of censorship from the district. However, many other students in Missouri and across the country are less fortunate.

Their voices are systematically stifled by the censorship of their schools. Stories about teen pregnancy, drugs and abuse are removed from their papers before they can reach other students and parents. These types of stories, the ones of a more ‘sensitive’ nature, are often the most powerful and valuable to those that read them. They bring into light common issues that aren’t discussed enough in our society, they provide solutions to those that are struggling with these issues, and they weave a more close-knit school environment. Shying away from these problems only lessens the ability of the community to combat them. With this in mind, we talked to one of the most important figures in student free speech history.

What was your role in the Tinker vs. Des Moines case?

They made a rule [against armbands] just a few days earlier. [Mr. Moberly] had spent most of the class period the day before talking about the armband situation because it had been in the Des Moines paper that students were planning for armbands and then the school board had this ruling [against it].

What sparked your passion for standing up for your beliefs?

I was growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, and my dad was a preacher and we were living pretty much normal, middle america lives. In these times, the civil rights movement was growing and we would go down to the capitol building sometimes and picket about fair housing and about racial discrimination. Because, you know, my dad was a preacher and he believed in putting your beliefs, your faith, into action. He and my mom had actually been down to Mississippi that summer because there was a campaign

about registering black voters. I started to gain respect for people who take risks to speak up for equality, justice, and democracy.

What steps were necessary to bring the case to court?

First of all, the American Civil Liberties Union approached my parents [and some other parents of the children involved] and offered to help us legally. They said that first we had to go to the school board and try to negotiate with them and try to get them to change their mind [about the suspension].

So that’s what we did. There was a big school board meeting but they wouldn’t change their minds so [the American Civil Liberties Union] filed a lawsuit challenging our suspensions.

How did your parents influence your actions?

My parents exposed us to examples of

OPINION 47

people who stood up for justice and equality and all those ideals that we honor in our country. Since my dad was a preacher he believed that you’re supposed to put your ideas into action.

Can you think of any way that the case relates to journalism?

Journalism is in great peril today as people are finding printed news less and less necessary. People often fail to recognize the significance of the unbiased word.

Ms. Tinker left us with a message to spread about journalism: “Journalism; it’s under attack in general. I think it’s a really, really important time for journalism, and I’m so glad that you are doing this work and I hope that you’ll tell the other students that are involved, and also your advisor how much I admire what you’re doing because it’s so important now to promote journalism, and to show that journalism is not going away.”

follow the

GLOBE INSTAGRAM FACEBOOK TWITTER SNAPCHAT and ONLINE

@chsglobe facebook.com/chsglobe chsglobe.com