Baseball Playoffs pg. 16
Pitch Perfect 2 pg, 13
Garland Shooting pg. 6
Cash shares passion for history for over thirty years By Troylon Griffin II Sports Editor
For over thirty years, Gwen Cash has worked at Clear Creek as a regular and the AP US history teacher. She teaches because she enjoys “imparting knowledge to young people about the history of our country” as well as for the personal interactions with students that keep her young. “Teaching is fun because I get to decide how my day is going to be like.” Mrs. Cash said. “I think history is fascinating. History is like a story and each chapter has all the characters and actors and how they’re connected. So I tell my students to think of history as a soap opera.” Cash’s love of history started in eighth grade. She recalled how she had an amazing history teacher who made history “come alive.” Every summer, her mother would make her and her siblings read a certain number of books based on their age. Most of her days in the summer were spent going down to the public library. “I started reading historical books in the summer and I fell in love with it.” In college, she took quite a few World History classes, but was more concerned with the country that she came from. She received her degree in American History and began her teaching at Clear Creek High School. Despite only being a little bit older than the seniors, Cash was a firm teacher from the very beginning. “At first they didn’t know how to react,” she said. “But they didn’t have a problem because I treated them all equally.” Cash admitted it was hard the first few days, especially considering she did not even have an actual classroom. She had to walk around the school with her work and papers in a package. At the time, Creek had different sections based on the subjects being taught.
“As I look back, at it now, it was good because I came back. I had many job
the course because of how outstanding she feels it is. She notes that the class is
Photo courtsey of Raynie Leard offers but I stayed.” indeed challenging. Cash said. “I think “Junior year is I grew up with my students. I started the year that separates the real top ten percent with freshmen and by the time I got to from the pretenders.” Mrs. Cash said. seniors, they had matured and so had I.” She told of how in her class, there is Cash, of course, has gained her homework every night as it is the only recognition by doing what she feels she does way to truly embed the information into best: teaching United States History. She the students’ head for the AP test. Even revealed that she does indeed consider herself on the first day the students are told they to be a good teacher when she was asked. must read the first chapter of the textbook “Of course I do,” she and that they have a quiz. She knows said. “If I don’t think I’m a good students don’t like all the work but she teacher, why would anyone else?” says that when they get their AP results Cash feels that people should take in July, they realize it was all worth it.
“My job is to educate, the student’s job is to complain,” she said. “The work is worth it. Would you want to have a surgeon operate on you who has not done his prep work for his classes? You get out of America what you put in. you can prepare for college in high school by taking the correct course or you can attempt to learn on the fly in college.” Ultimately, the students end up finishing the textbook in April and review for the rest of the month and into May. The students also spend the tear analyzing primary sources that will help them make historical connections. With Mrs. Cash having ninety percent of her students pass the AP test and having five stars out of five on ratemyteacher.com, it seems Mrs. Cash’s methods are certainly working. Since her coming to Creek, Cash has experienced many positive memories and highlights during her thirty plus years at Creek. One of these highlights included how Creek was rebuilt in 2007. “That was fun to come back into a rebuilt school.” Mrs. Cash said. “But to me every year is great. I bring my joy with me so I enjoy everyday.” She also recalled how she had a “certain birthday” in which her brother decided to cut George Washington’s face out of a one-dollar bill. He then put a picture of her in the place of the picture and made thousands of copies. After getting permission from Creek’s principal, he distributed the dollars to nearly all the students. All day at Creek, students came to her saying happy birthday, even students that she didn’t even have and never did have. In 2010, Mrs. Cash received the award for US History Teacher of the year. Since then, Mrs. Cash has continued to teach her students for thirty plus years, giving students insight and interest into the history of our country.
Texas Senate Bill 149 officially signed and in effect By Lisa Nhan Managing Editor
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has approved Senate Bill 149, which was designed to provide an opportunity for the current seniors who did not pass all of the required STAAR exams to graduate this month. The bill was signed into law as effective immediately on May 11. “The goal of the Texas public education system should be to ensure all students who graduate from high school are college or college ready. Ensuring that Texas students are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary for future success is what students, parents an taxpayers deserve,” Abbott, in a press release on the official Officer of the Governor website, said. “This is exactly why I have pledged to elevate Texas’ public education to be number one in the nation.”
The bill was written by Senator Kyle Seliger and allows school districts to establish committees. Seliger stressed the importance of it, “not designed to provide some kind of easy exit.” They will be reviewing the students who failed one or two of the exams to determine if the student is eligible to graduate, determined by grades and other factors. Things such as standardized college entrance exams, like the SAT and ACT, will be examined. The committees will be made up of the principal or designee, teacher and department chair of the subject of the failed exam(s), the student’s parent or guardian or the student if he or she is 18 years old. If the Legislature does not renew it, it will expire in two years. “I will continue to work with the Legislature to create and maintain standards of excellence for accomplished,”Abbott said.
For the class of 2015, there are still about 28,000 students who need to pass one of more of the five state exams, according to the Texas Tribune. For the student who must retake exams, about half of them must retake more than one. The exams required to graduate are U.S. history, biology, algebra I, English I and II. “Not all 28,000 of these kids are going to be viewed affirmatively by these committees, but an awful lot of them are,” Seliger said. The bill did face opposition, however, from places such as the Texas Association of Business and the Austin Chamber of Commerce. They believed it allow students who are not adequately prepared to graduate. Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business told the Dallas Morning News that the review committees saw a risk for giving out “social promotion” and belittling the “value of the
diploma for all those who worked hard in school and proved their skills on these tests.” Other critics voiced their concern that the panel of educators might show a bias in order to help preserve school ratings based on graduation rates. However, despite the backlash, the bill was still passed. “The Class of 2015 is the first graduating class required to pass the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) end-of-course in order to graduate. While it is critical that the state appropriately holds public schools and districts accountable for the best possible education, we must protect Texas students from being penalized as a result of evolving testing standards,” Abbott said. “SB 149 protects students from undue penalization, and guarantees that students who meet specified are able to graduate.”