Volume 80 Issue 7

DART THE

ST. TERESA’S ACADEMY KANSAS CITY MO VOLUME 80 ISSUE 7

IDENTITY EVOLVING:

SHARING THE GENDERQUEER EXPERIENCE According to the school’s official website, “St. Teresa’s molds students into confident, skilled, and caring young women through a challenging curriculum, an all-female environment, a diverse student body, Christian values, and personal responsibility.” However, there are members of the STA community who do not identify with being female, in which concerns have arisen from these genderqueer and transgender students to administration about their place in the STA mission. These concerns have pushed conversations that have led to policy changes to create a more gender-inclusive environment while abiding by the institution’s core values. pg 16

2 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

APRIL 15, 2021

DEAR READER, The best way to describe our last issue as editors-in-chief is the emotion invoked by John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” These past three years have been filled with constant inspiration, meeting amazing people and learning how to whip out an article on a 24 hour deadline. Issue to issue, deadline to deadline, each one has brought periods of personal growth and gratitude to the amazing staffers we have been surrounded with.

We would like to extend that gratitude to the 2020-2021 Dart staff: it has been unbelievably rewarding watching you all grow as journalists and lift this newspaper to new heights. As journalists, we have all told stories in our community through writing, photography and design that otherwise would not have been shared, and in that way you all have made such an impact.

One of these impactful stories is the cover story for this issue: “Identity Evolving,” written

by Carmon Baker, Sophia Rall and Claire Smith.

This story caused a shift in our STA community to recognize and have conversations about the experiences of transgender and genderqueer students. These conversations have not only

led to changes in administrative policies and procedures, but also to providing a platform for students to be open about their identity and to feel safe here at STA. We want to thank everybody who shared their perspective for this piece, and we encourage you to take a moment to consider how you can support LGBTQ+ figures in your life.

Violence against Asian-Americans has increased in the last year and needs to be addressed. Josie Fox interviewed AsianAmerican members of the STA community about their experiences with micro-aggressions.

On DartNewsOnline is a gallery from Claire Smith, who took photos of an Anti-Asian American Hate vigil that occurred downtown to stop Asian-American racism in Kansas City.

Also on the DNO, hard-core Marvel fan Sydney Allen shares her thoughts on the new weekly Marvel series “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” and Lucy Doerflinger captures the current spring fashions through a photo gallery.

If you have ever wondered how other student publications run outside of our own, be sure to check out Ali Madden’s podcast interviewing representatives from Sion’s Le Journal and

Rockhurst High School’s Prep News.

With college decisions done and dusted, the Netflix documentary “Operation Varsity Blues’’ shows a corrupted college process.

Mara Callahan shares her thoughts on this documentary on page 11.

We would like to thank the STA community for always being interesting, newsworthy and willing to share your experiences with us.

Without you, our best stories wouldn’t be the best and our favorite photos would be empty.

Last but certainly not least, thank you to our wonderful advisor Riley Cowing for guiding us these past three years and making us into our best selves.

Love,

DESIGNED BY RACHEL ROBINSON

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

3

The 86% Star Spotlight: Zoë Hoss

Bits & Pieces

630

“Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away.”

Reviews: Sushi restaurants & “Operation Varsity Blues”

416

Combating anti-Asian violence Student burnout is on the rise

The power of the Meyers Briggs test

Centerspread: Identity Evolving “The Avengers” are my comfort movies Transgender athletes navigate school sports The houseless community of Kansas City seeks aid and resources Oscars: Who will get it and who deserves it A picnic at the park

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COVER DESIGNED BY CLAIRE SMITH | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

22 23 24 26 28 30

4 NEWS FEATURE

APRIL 15th, 2021

The 86% are making their voices heard

The United Nations released a study about the prevalence of sexual assault in the UK, the results of which have been a catalyst for survivors to share their stories but also for social media backlash.

A

Story by Rachel Robinson | Editor-in-Chief

nyone with a TikTok, Twitter or Instagram account has probably seen either “#97percent” or “#NotAllMen” trending in the last month.

Both are in response to the murder of a UK woman named Sarah Everard and to a study conducted in the UK about the prevalence of sexual harrassment, but the two trends promote very different messages. Women who have experienced sexual harrassment or sexual assault have shared their stories using the hashtag #97percent, but others pointed out that just because a large majority of women have been victims of sexual abuse doesn’t mean all men are perpetrators.

The figure 97% is not actually in line with the results of the study and was likely derived from the fact that 86% of women ages 18-24 said they had experienced sexual harrassment, with only 3% saying they had never experienced any form of sexual harassment. The remaining 11% did not answer the question. The overall result of the study was that 71% of all UK women have experienced sexual harassment of some kind.

The study defines sexual harassment as “the contiuum of violent practices against women and girls” including all types of unwanted physical and verbal sexual conduct.

Graphic by Becca Speier | Photo Editor

Other backlash against the study came from those who suggested that these figures are too high and that the study has to be flawed, but according to professor Hannah Britton, they sound about right. Britton teaches in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department as well as the Political Science department at the University of Kansas.

“It seems fairly realistic, especially with the types of behaviors that they’re presenting,” Britton said. “If it had just been sexual assault, I would have said, that’s high. You know, I think the numbers are like one in four or one in six, but this is a full range of sexual assault and sexual harassment so I think that seems pretty realistic to me.”

Junior Ellie Bolch first heard about this study through the 97% trend on TikTok, and although that specific statistic might have been off, she thinks social media can be a powerful tool for activists and survivors to inform people about sexual abuse. “[Social media] definitely spreads awareness, and I think TikTok is actually like a good way to do it,” Bolch said. “Even though people can make jokes out of it, which is not what it should be, I feel like everyone has TikTok and everyone sees TikTok so like, for people sharing their story, that can be a really good way to raise awareness and get those views.”

According to English teacher Sarah Taber, social media can be the beginning of a conversation about sexual abuse, but it shouldn’t be the end of it. Taber feels strongly that this topic should be discussed in schools, around the dinner table and wherever possible to help spread awareness. In her own classes, she teaches a study from the University of South Florida about “precarious manhood,” which is an idea that masculinity requires “continual social proof and validation,” which sometimes includes objectifying or harming women, even if the perpetrators do not think of it in those terms.

“One of the interesting things about the study is it almost makes you empathize a little bit with men for half a second because of this idea that they’re sort of being raised

in this culture and unaware of how they’re being affected by this expectation, and I say just half a second because we can do so much better at educating them and talking about unconscious expectations like this,” Taber said. “I think we should be talking about studies like this in Catholic schools and all-male schools so that we’re having better awareness around the ways in which these actions and behaviors are happening so often in society and affecting women and their relationships with men.”

Britton agrees that in any productive conversation about gender-based violence, all genders have to be involved in dismantling harmful social norms.

“I think for sexual harassment to end, all genders need to be involved, right?” Britton said. “And if people are saying that they’re not part of the problem, then they could be part of the solution, like what are they actively doing to change a climate where sexual harassment is widely practiced? What are they doing to change the behaviors of their social groups? What are they doing to change the thoughts and actions of others? I think there’s a place for everybody in the movement to end violence against all genders.”

Taber also believes that it’s possible to acknowledge that not all men are part of the problem without pulling the focus away from survivors of sexual abuse.

“Yeah, I mean, I think we have a history of, you know, men being the dominant voice in the room and wanting to control the dialogue and wanting to silence women and wanting to put the blame on what a woman is wearing or how a woman is behaving,” Taber said. “And no, it’s not all men. Of course we know that.

But again, is that, you know, is that some sort of veiling tactic, so that we’re not discussing the 86%? It is happening, too. So yes, I think we can acknowledge that it’s not all men and then we can spend a lot more time talking about the rest of them.” B

CHECK OUT THE FULL STORY ON THE DARTNEWSONLINE

NATIONAL NEWS

DESIGNED BY BECCA SPEIER

5

NATIONAL NEWS UPDATES CALIFORNIA

The state is on the verge of another terrible drought, only a couple years after one of the worst dry spells in the state’s history. According to drought. gov, one of the most intense drought periods occurred the week of July 29, 2014, where over 50% of the state’s land was affected. The accumulation of snow this year on the Sierra Nevada Mountains was 40% less than average.

The Guardian

KANSAS

The Overland Park police have been searching for a suspect involved with the shooting at the Walmart that took place on March 29. The Walmart is located on 75th street. Fox 4 News

Complied by Lily Sage | Opinion Editor

TEXAS

During the week of April 6, a new executive order issued by the Texas governor claimed that government agencies, private businesses and institutions that receive state funding cannot force patrons to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine, since it is private, health information.

New York Times

GEORGIA

On March 16, Robert Long was arrested and charged with eight counts of murder, after a killing spree in three different massage parlors. He took the lives of six women of Asian descent.

New York Times

MINNESOTA

Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd has commenced on March 29; Chauvin denied the charges and pledged not guilty. The Guardian

FLORIDA

Many different crews had to drain a wastewater pond due to a chemical leak in Manatee County, Florida which has prompted many evacuations and environmental concerns. National Public Radio

6 STAR SPOTLIGHT How did you first start horseback riding?

It was one year on Easter that I rode a pony for the first time and I fell in love, and I wouldn’t get off. After that I’d been asking my mom to ride horses for years and years, and she finally bought me a Groupon to some crazy instructor who I rode with for about five years.

Can you walk me through one of your performances?

At a horse show, I would show up around 7 o’clock because my instructor has already gotten the horses there and she does all the work for me so that I can stay clean and pretty. I’ll put my show clothes on, and I will go in the warm up ring and get on my horse and I’ll warm them up. Then you just wait for them to call your class. New people come in every single class and show in different disciplines.

I wait for my class number, and then I trot into the ring. You go to the right, that’s the first way. You trot a few laps until the judge in the middle says either walk your horses or reverse, whatever they feel like saying. You walk and then you wait for the next command, and they’ll tell you to most likely canter, if you’re in walk, trot, canter class, which is what I do. Then you canter and you do full laps. The judge sees what they need to see, and then they tell you to walk, and then most likely reverse, and you do everything the other way. Depending on what type of class you’re showing in dictates what you do.

How is the winner decided?

That also depends on the type of class you’re in. If you’re in an equitation class, they are judging how you look, your form, your position, are your heels down, are you sitting straight up, are you relaxed but still strong? How you look and how your horse looks, but more importantly on you. Then in horsemanship classes, it’s how you show your horse. How good your horse looks.

There are a bunch of other classes, but I

Zoё APRIL 15, 2021

show equitation and horsemanship.

With horsemanship, if you’ve got a nicer horse, usually you’ll win, which kind of sucks because you’ve got people who bring in horses that have no business being in Academy.

Cause Academy is for kind of your more old, rundown, lesson horses that people teach on.

Not so much show horses that people spend a bunch of money on.

So when you’ve got someone who brings in a show horse against all of these school horses — that’s like bringing a Ferrari next to someone’s Ford Fusion. It’s not even fair. Obviously the Ferrari’s going to win. We kind of get irritated when someone brings in a nice, show horse, because they’re most likely gonna win. But sometimes you can show better than someone who’s out mounted you.

How do you feel about the “horse girl” stereotype?

Yes I’ve been called a horse girl many times. I joke with people and call myself a horse girl, but obviously I’m not a horse girl.

Technically I’m an equestrian. Horse girls are the people who act like they’re horses and they jump over obstacles or they’ll wear tails and they literally think they’re horses. Those are horse girls, the people who actually do it, we are equestrians. I cannot stress this enough.

Please don’t call people who ride horses ”horse girls” cause it gets on our nerves.

We don’t really like it that much.

H

Sophomore Zoë Hoss fell in love with horses and horse showing has changed her life Story by Caroline Hinkebein | Sports Editor

What’s your favorite part of horseback riding?

In all honesty, it’s not so much riding. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But it’s more just going out there and being at the barn and being around them and going

7

DESIGNED BY CAROLINE HINKEBEIN

into their stalls and brushing them and just taking care of them. That’s so much more significant, it means so much more to me than just getting out there and riding and getting off. It’s more

Hoss just bonding with them, and they’re like your best friends. I promise I’m not crazy or lonely, but you can tell them anything in the world and they won’t tell anybody, not like they can, but they’ll keep your secrets and they can feel your emotions and they’ll react to your emotions, and it’s just really cool.

Sophomore Zoë Hoss with a horse she rides named Houdini March 31. Zoë has been horse showing since she was 10 years old. photo

by Caroline Hinkebein

What is your relationship with the horses you ride?

I’d say it’s a pretty strong bond. You don’t even talk to them and they just understand you and they just know.

When you spend so much time with them, it creates a bond so strong that you can’t break it. It’s so hard to break those bonds. They last for a lifetime.

If you’ve ever seen the videos of the people who sell their horses, and then they come back like 10 years later and see that horse again, that horse immediately recognizes them because that bond never went away. It’s just really cool and the relationship I have with horses is a special one. I can’t even explain it to you; it’s just something you have to feel and experience for yourself.

paralyzed me. And there’s these people yelling at me and they’re like “Are you okay? Are you okay?” and I’m not even able to respond because I’m just staring at the wall. I thought for a second that I broke my back, and I was absolutely terrified because I was thinking “I won’t be able to walk again, I broke my back.”

I was preparing for the worst. I was like I’ve really done it this time. Because when you’re riding horses you fall off all the time. That’s just something that happens, especially when you’re learning. It was just scary because I was like this is the last time I’ll ever ride, this is the last time I’ll ever walk. Long story short, I got my feeling back and I was able to walk, well not really, but I could at least move.

Have you ever gotten injured while showing? What was your worst injury?

Yeah so I was riding this new horse with a bridle that wasn’t strong enough for her, so the bit was too weak. I had little to no control, and that horse was hot and excited. We’re going around the ring and I’m slowly losing control but I’m too proud to admit it and my instructor at the time, Sarah, she was like “it’s safe, it’s safe, it’s safe.” Yeah, it wasn’t. I accidentally hit one of the cones because we were doing pattern work. I hit one of the cones, and the horse spooks. I go one way she goes the other and my leg ended up underneath her hoof. She didn’t step on me, thankfully, because if she did my knee would’ve been obliterated.

But she grazed the inside of my knee, so I have some pretty severe nerve damage that I still have now about three years later. It was swollen, it was bruised, black and blue.

The really crazy thing was when I fell off, I was just laying there in the dirt and I was paralyzed. The shock had

Would you recommend horseback riding?

I really recommend riding horses.

It’s a very rewarding experience. It gives you something to live for almost. If you do like horses and you’ve been thinking about it, I so recommend it. They teach you so many skills. Not just skills when you’re riding but skills that you take with you, that even your teachers can’t teach you. They teach you patience, they really ground you like if you get too much of an ego or too full of yourself they’ll quickly ground you, and show you that you’re not as great as you think you are. They’re so honest. They don’t lie to you, and they don’t cheat. They are who they are, and they don’t hide it.

It’s such a loving experience. If you just like animals in general, I recommend going to a horse show and just watching. You could just go and watch, and see these beautiful animals in action and just support anybody who’s out there riding. And boys ride, too. Don’t just think it’s a girl dominated sport, I mean it is, but there are boys out there who ride. I definitely recommend riding if you’re a guy. B

8

BITS & PIECES

My life rocks

APRIL 15, 2021

Made By Rachel Robinson

My life sucks

YALEI WILCOX

SAMANTHA BALLING

“I got my wisdom teeth taken out and it wasn’t bad at all!”

“I had to get a third palette expander!”

DESIGNED BY CLAIRE SMITH

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Not Long Ago.

9

Not Far Away.

Union Station is hosting the exhibit “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.” Summer 2021. Holocaust survivor Judy Jacobs and historian Dr. Shelly Cline give their insight on the exhibit.

A

Story by Ellie Buttell | Writer Photos compiled by Lucy Doerflinger | News Editor

uschwitz was one of many concentration camps during the Holocaust which lasted 1933 to 1945. More than 6 million jews and 5 million others, including homosexuals, intellectualy disabled, and many more died in the Holocaust according to History.com. In June 2021, Union Station will host “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.” The exhibit features 700 original objects and 400 photographs from over 20 museums around the world. This exhibit will only make two stops in North America —Union Station in Kansas City and New York’s Museum of Heritage, where it is currently located.

Union Station’s website states: “Union Station Kansas City is honored to host this significant story and presentation of artifacts.”

Since many personal stories will be told through the visuals of this exhibit, a Kansas City Holocaust survivor Judy Jacobs gives insight on the imprint she hopes it leaves on the community.

“I think this will be highly educational, and that’s what I’m hoping — that people will get a shock and realize this is what people can do when they are insensitive and uncaring,” Jacobs said.

Jacobs was in first grade when she was taken from her home in Budapest, Hungary and brought to Bergen Belsen, a concentration camp in Northern Germany. Although Jacobs never spent time in Auschwitz, her immediate family was affected by it.

“The Nazi’s kept pretty good records,” Jacobs said.

Due to their record keeping abilities, Jacobs was able to discover the fate of her grandparents.

“I recently found out that my grandparents, my mother’s parents, were gassed the same day we left Budapest.”

The death of her grandparents took place

in a completely different concentration camp while she was in an overcrowded cattle car on the way to Bergen Belson. At least 19,700 people were killed at Bergen Belsen, according to the Holocaust Educational Trust. According to History.com, 1.1 million people were killed in Auschwitz.

The exhibit displays an inside view on the Nazi party and the terrors they executed on the innocent.

Union Station’s website describes the unparalleled opportunity visitors are given to confront the human evil shown throughout the Holocaust. Jacob’s is all to farmiliar to the evil shown throughout the Holocaust as she recalls multiple experiances with Nazis.

“They always yelled obscenities,” Jacobs said. “One of their favorite expressions was ‘subhuman.’ And I was, at that point, 7 years old, I began to wonder if I was a subhuman.”

After around six months in the camp, Jacobs was released. She recalls hearing church bells on her way to Switzerland after the release.

“It was a sign of beauty and peace and normal,” Jacobs said.

“Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.

Explores the dual identity of the camp as a physical location-- the largest documented mass murder site in human history.” The Official Website for Union Station states.

Dr. Shelly Cline, historian and director of education, has worked with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and with this exhibit in particular. She visited the exhibit in New York during February 2020. She was astounded by the objects they had shown and was most fascinated by a physical model of Auschwitz.

“To me, seeing this model of the camp was really interesting, because it gives people a sense of the size and geography of the space,” Cline said.

Cline believes those who visit the museum will be moved by the personal objects at the exhibit. Some other artifacts include childrens toys and a commander’s desk. Alongside showing the physical aspect of Auschwitz, it also gives a deeper look as to what was going on during the Holocaust.

“For most people, this is going to be the most intimate experience that they will have with these Holocaust spaces,” Cline said.

While she has traveled all around the world and visited multiple concentration camps, including Aushwitz, she recognizes they’re not easy to reach, and that this exhibit could be the limit on Holocaust exploration for most people.

She urges people of all ages to attend the exhibit.

“Take a weekend, go with your parents. Go with your friends,” Cline said.

She believes once you are in the exhibit, it’s important to stay present the whole time. She believes the viewer should take a deeper look into each object brought by the survivors from the concentration camps.

“Think about these objects and who owned them; why would they take them with them?”

Cline said. “Just allow yourself some time to reflect as well.”

Jacobs and Cline both stressed the importance of young people exploring and processing this exhibit.

“The world needs to be aware, because hopefully, this will teach this generation what not to do,” Jacobs said. B

FOR THE PHOTO ABOVE: A few of the over 700 artifacts from an Auschwitz Concentration Camp exhibit are on display March 29. This exhibit is called “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” and will be on display in New York until May 2. photo courtesy of European Observatory on Memories

10 REVIEWS

Status Updated:

APRIL 15, 2021

Varsity Blues

Operation Varsity Blues takes a deep dive into the tricky business of cheating college admissions and the dialogue leads the way.

Story and pictures compiled by Mara Callahan

S

poradic late-night college searching has become a new pastime of mine and one I don’t find particularly calming. The glow of my computer screen illuminates my furrowed eyebrows while my eyes graze the list of degrees offered at DePaul University. The ticking and tocking of my bedside clock reminding me it’s probably too late to be planning out my future.

College applications are always on my mind. Suddenly the thought of getting rejected from my dream college has surpassed clowns as my greatest fear. I attended my virtual sophomore college planning on night March 6, 2021, within a week of watching “Operation Varsity Blues” on Netflix, and it has completely changed the way I view the college admissions process. The documentary borders on suspensefulness as it follows Rick Singer, a self-declared college counselor who became the mastermind behind the college admissions scandal, played by Matthew Modine, as he weaves himself deeper into a web of money and lies.

Modine’s acting is spot on. Right off the bat, I could tell there was something extra sleazy about Singer from the way Modine portrayed his mannerisms; assuring a client his business is

truthful while simultaneously negotiating the price he can weasel out of them—I even started to get creeped out whenever he came on screen. It seemed Modine was able to reveal Singer’s lies without even speaking a word; that’s not to say the storyline wasn’t well thought out. The dialogue, based on recorded conversations between Singer and his clients, was edge-of-your-seat-worthy.

The first thing this documentary got right was the opening scene. Clips of high school seniors from their YouTube channels as they await the dreaded answer to a yes or no question: will I be accepted or will I get deferred? These clips set the tone for anxiety that leaves the viewer feeling slightly unsettled throughout the whole hour and 40 minutes. Clips and photos similar to these pop in and out of the storyline, constantly putting real-life faces to the people portrayed in the documentary.

The factuality of the documentary is one of two reasons I’d rate it 4.7 stars. From the direct quotes taken out of Singer’s recorded phone line to the ongoing storylines between Singer’s 33 different clients, it’s evident that those behind production were more than familiar with the facts behind the story they wanted to tell. I walked into my living room with no prior knowledge of the scandal and left fully prepared to have a thorough conversation about the grimy details with whoever was willing to listen.

“ I thought the documentary was really fascinating and interesting to learn what was actually going on inside the admissions process. I thought it was really entertaining, especially because the whole movie was recorded by phone calls. As a senior, I have been frustrated at my own college admissions process but have become very much an expert in the whole area. I had heard about the Lori Laughlin scandal a few years ago and was really intrigued to hear the full story. It definitely kept my attention.”

Senior Morgan Saxe

The second reason I gave “Operation Varsity Blues” a rating of 4.7 stars is its relativity. According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68.9% of American high school graduates are enrolled in a college.

More than half of 16-24 year olds will go through the college admissions process, many of whom might be struggling to come up with the credentials to ensure them a spot at their most desired university. It’s uncomfortable to say, but I can see the appeal of Singer’s mendacious promise—a guaranteed acceptance to any college of your choosing. The relativity of the issue draws young viewers in by forcing them to contemplate their morals and realize the appeal of Singer’s business is built on a pile of fools’ gold.

Not only did I enjoy the documentary so much I watched it thrice, but I picked up on new details throughout each watch. The first time I watched it I was invested in the foundation of how the scandal functioned, but my second time watching it I was interested in each family’s story. “Operation Varsity Blues” is jampacked with information. The reason the documentary is just shy of a perfect 5 star rating is the level at which it distributed the information. Although the cuts to different storylines and interviews versus scripted dialogue make for an exciting watch, I felt it was choppy at times. All thoughts aside, I highly recommend every high schooler watch “Operation Varsity Blues” on Netflix at least once and decide for themselves if my rating is adequate.

AAAA

Sushi Supremacy

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DESIGNED BY GRACE ASHLEY

I

Check out the full story on

DartNewsOnline

Sushi, which originates from East Asia, offers a variety of tastes like sweet or spicy. I visited three sushi restaurants in the KCMO area to explore their unique experiences and specialty rolls.

love sushi and I have never had a bad experience with any roll or restaurant — I just love it. I’ve had grocery store sushi, local restaurant sushi, special occasion sushi and even airport sushi. I am clearly not a picky eater when it comes to trying new foods though I know it is not everyone’s cup of tea. I broadened my horizon of what sushi restaurants Kansas City had to offer by going to three different sit-downs. For consistency sake, I tried each restaurant’s version of the traditional California roll — which is crab, avocado and cucumber wrapped in seaweed and rice — and three of their specialty rolls.

I wanted to start my review with an open mind and try a sushi restaurant that I had never been to before, Ra Sushi, located in northern Town Center Plaza.

The menu featured 21 specialty rolls alone which made it difficult to settle on two. In the end, I chose the Mango Shrimp roll, $13.40 for eight pieces, and the Spicy Lobster roll, $12.90 for five pieces.

The Mango Shrimp roll was my favorite roll of the night: the freshness of the mango added a sweetness to the roll that complimented the taste of the shrimp. I typically prefer spicy rolls but the Spicy Lobster roll was disappointing. The lobster meat mix inside of the roll was soft but not overwhelmingly spicy. Unfortunately, I felt like the lettuce overpowered the overall taste for me and distracted from the flavor and dulled the spiciness of the roll. The California roll was the least expensive roll at $5.70 for eight pieces. I found it to be true to the classic taste that I have learned to recognize over the years.

Ra is the perfect setting for a date or

Story and graphics by Lauren Brackney

dinner with friends as its menu features more options than just sushi, so all food preferences and comfort levels would find something to enjoy. I rate my experience at Ra a 3/5 for its intimate environment and variety of flavor options.

AAA

My next stop was Prime Sushi on Main Street, a restaurant that I haven’t been to since it first opened in 2016.

Prime Sushi had some of the most creative names for their specialty rolls, such as the Hotline Bling roll, Mango Cha Cha roll and the Strawberry Fields roll.

I settled on the Royals Dragon roll, $15.95 for eight pieces, and the Godzilla roll, $14.95 for eight pieces.

The presentation of all of the rolls together was aesthetically pleasing with flowers and other garnishes, and all of the rolls were so large that I was already full by the third piece I tried. The Royals Dragon roll was my favorite roll of the bunch. It was topped with eel and filled with fried shrimp and avocado. The Godzilla roll had assorted fish on top, which I would recommend trying to anyone that is new to sushi and wants to experiment with different types of fish. The center was soft cream cheese paired with crunchy asparagus making for a really refreshing and flavorful roll.

Their California roll was $7.50 for eight pieces. The pieces were the largest out of all the restaurants tried and the crab mix was packed into the roll and was surprisingly fresh and tasty.

Prime was surprisingly the most expensive but the presentation and large size of the rolls helped even out the price since it meant you could order less rolls and

still feel full. I loved the modern, fun atmosphere of the restaurant and how the big windows brought in a calming light.

This was my favorite restaurant that I visited, and I would rate it a 4.5/5. It had everything I look for in a sushi restaurant, even though it wound up being more pricey than I expected.

AAAA My final stop was to Blue Sushi Sake Grill in Woodside Village. The menu did not feature as many rolls as some of the other restaurants I tried, which was good since I can sometimes be overwhelmed when there are too many choices. I picked the Thriller roll, $12.00 for eight pieces, and the Hotel Cali roll, $10.00 for eight pieces.

I thought it was interesting how the thriller was topped with spicy crab mix rather than having it inside the roll but the flavor combo of the mix and shrimp tempura was on point. The Hotel Cali roll also had this crab and shrimp tempura combo but additionally had jalapeno and cream cheese which set the flavors apart. I felt like their rolls were much smaller and didn’t feel as filling as some of the other restaurants I had been to. The California roll was $7.50 for eight pieces and was similar to Ra’s California roll only I felt like Blue had much less crab mix.

Blue Sushi Sake Grill has a very fun and entertaining vibe that I think would be great to go to with friends. The menu isn’t as extensive which gives less opportunities to try a variety of items. Additionally, the rolls were not very big but still had a higher price. This earns Blue Sushi Sake Grill a 3.5/5.

AAA

12 FEATURE

APRIL 15, 2021

The fight to end Anti-Asian hate

After a shooting in Atlanta, Georgia of eight people, including six Asian women, awareness about anti-Asian hate crimes has increased and provided the community an opportunity to share their experiences.

Story by Josie Fox | Opinion Editor & Photos by Claire Smith | Editor-in-Chief

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n March 16 there was a shooting in Atlanta, Georgia which claimed eight lives, six of which were Asian women. The shooting brought to light the increasing struggles the Asian and Asian American community has been facing since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is going to sound kind of bad, but I really wasn’t surprised by it,” senior Lia Uhlenhuth said. “It’s really good that this is coming to the public eye right now because of what happened, but people don’t realize that this has been going on for a lot longer.

Back when COVID-19 started, people were calling it the ‘Kung Flu’ or the ’China virus’ which you know, [is] not good at all.”

According to a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism,

the rate of anti-Asian hate crimes between 2019 and 2020 increased 149% while the overall hate crime rate has dropped 7% in the United States. This trend parallels the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and the study also found that there was a spike in Google searches of “Kung Flu” and the “China virus.”

“I’m in Current Events Club, and we were talking about this, and I saw this girl just break down because she has a Korean grandmother who goes out walking, and she’s just terrified,” Uhlenhuth said. “And when I talk about this, when other girls talk about this — it’s a very raw emotion.”

This fear of lingering violence only continues to increase among the AsianAmerican community in the aftermath of

the Atlanta shooting, especially the concern for the safety of loved ones. Jazzmin Earl, art teacher as well as the Asian Affinity Club moderator, shared this sentiment of fear for both her grandma and mom.

“I keep seeing videos where it’s our elders that are walking on streets or on the sidewalk and those are the people who are being victimized right now,” Earl said. “It’s like, they’re easy targets — very vulnerable people and probably won’t lash back.”

Uhlenhuth pointed to another layer of anti-Asian hate: microaggressions.

For Uhlenhuth this includes being called names, the fox-eye trend that circulated on TikTok and personally being mistaken for other Asian students. The fox-eye trend is a makeup trend that requires pulling

An attendee of the “stop asian hate kc’ vigil holds a handmade wooden heart with “protect asian lives” painted across it march 28. all signs from the vigil will be collected and hung in cafe Cà Phê.

Cafe Cà Phê hosted a vigil on March 28 for the victims of the Atlanta shooting that occurred on March 16 of six Asian-American women. The vigil acted as a space of ally-ship and imploring the community to stop Asian American hate. sign stood at the front of the speakers’ stage and beside a pot with licensing listing the names of the victims of the atlanta shooting march 28.

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back the eyes to give them an angled look, something that the Asian community is often made fun of for having naturally.

“I have been mistaken for [Ange Dickson and Irene Nguyen-Do],” Uhlenhuth said.

“They have been mistaken for me. It’s like a little trio. We got mistaken for each other which just feels kind of insulting to us. We just want people to know our names.”

For Earl, microaggressions toward herself and friends informed how she responded to the Atlanta shooting, as well as consistent encouragement from her mom as a kid to speak up. Part of her response was to hold an emergency Asian Affinity meeting March 22 to discuss the shooting and to continue meeting once a week since.

“The goal is to have a platform for the students to speak,” Earl said. “And to have a safe space, and to have a place to process what is going on.”

St. Teresa’s director of equity outreach and inclusive education Brianna Walker released a statement March 22 addressing the Atlanta shooting. The letter stated: “We stand with our Asian American and Pacific Island community.” The letter also named specific counseling and supportive

resources students could seek out including: Campus Ministry, Counseling Department, Director of Equity and Inclusion, staff members and fellow students.

“If you have an Asian friend, make sure to ask how they’re doing,” Earl said.

Earl also offered resources to learn more about the issue as well as Kansas City Asian owned businesses to support during this time, including Sura Noodle Bar and Cafe Cà Phê.

“I’m researching different links,” Earl said. “So for example, stopappihate.org is a fabulous resource to look up information.”

In order to combat and track the recent uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University established a STOP AAPI HATE online reporting center on March 19, 2020.

STOP AAPI HATE follows a “5-pronged approach” that is meant to address structural racism against all communities of color. This approach includes offering multilingual resources for victims, the installation of community safety measures

and advocating for human and civil rights protections on the local, state and national level.

Being mindful about the struggle of Asians and Asian-Americans and actively expressing support is just one path to healing.

“I’ve seen them like posting their anime cosplay calls and pictures of their favorite K Pop idol,” Uhlenhuth said. “ And then as soon as the Asian community is in distress, they just go dark. I think that it’s hypocritical for people to take part in our culture, and then not recognize us as people who have these cards stacked against us. I just think that if you enjoy K Pop, anime, then you should speak out and do what you can because the Asian community is standing against this, but we need help because there are only so many of us — I mean, we are a minority. There’s just so much hate, and then it’s really easy for us to lose hope. I think that you should speak out against this. You just should in general, but especially, especially if you consume our culture.” B

ANti-asian hate amidst the covid-19 pandemic Alternative Coverage by Sophia Rall | Features Editor

58% of Asian-Americans say that it is more common for people to express racism towards Asians and Asian-Americans since the beginning of the pandemic

31%

23%

have been subject to slurs or jokes because of their ethnicity

have feared someone might physically attack or threaten them Information compiled from Pew Research Center

14 FEATURE

THE BURN

APRIL 15, 2021

The search for high achievement combined with the COVID-19 pandemic has led to burnout for STA students.

Story by Carmon Bakrer | Web Editor

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Photo by Sydney Allen | Photo Editor

very Sunday around 1 p.m., junior in different areas can often be caused by one Rebecca Hoff hits a point where the original problem, which then grows out of reality of going back to school the hand. next morning makes her feel stressed and “Side effects are going to be different depressed. She experiences burnout for a few depending on what area of burnout you’re days about twice a month, typically around experiencing,” Whitcomb said. “If you’re the times she has important tests. struggling with burnout in school, likely “I experience stress caused by academics your grades are going to dip. Sometimes it daily,” Hoff said. “It varies from underlying can be unfortunately a snowball effect. If you anxiety from homework each day to fullexperience burnout in one area, other things blown panic when I have tests or projects are affected and then you experience burnout due. I usually always feel a little bit stressed. in other areas or other things start falling by (Which can be a good thing! Stress is supposedly supposed to help your performance abilities.) But around one to two times a week I get really stressed out.”

Senior Molly Hirner has also experienced academic burnout.

“I feel like I haven’t had burnout to the point where I’ve gotten super bad grades, but maybe more to the point where it’s like made me procrastinate a lot,” Hirner said. “Or also like, I’ve learned to live a lot more by ‘work smarter, not harder.’ I work pretty hard, but I feel like, especially this year with COVID-19, I just don’t really, and I’ve taken really hard classes, taken AP in mostly everything, so Senior Eileen Harrington stands in front of words that reflect “burn out” April all that stress and workload has just kind of built onto senior year, 1. A burn out feeling typically sets in late in the school year when it is coming to a close. and I’m just like, if I can do the least amount of homework at night. Like I the wayside.” try to get everything done at school, and then Whitcomb believes that burnout is at night I just can’t do homework when I’m common among high school students outside of school basically now.” because many constantly pressure themselves Counselor Amanda Whitcomb has her to obtain high achievement. own definition of burnout.

“In my experience with young people “I would define burnout as a feeling of and young girls in particular at St. Teresa’s, exhaustion and apathy when it comes to I think there is a strong desire to be the tasks that you previously felt very strong best or on top or do really well, sort of this in completing or confident in completing, perfectionist drive,” Whitcomb said. “Not for and you’re just no longer able to find the every person, but for students who are really motivation or the desire to do those things,” academically inclined or maybe athletically Whitcomb said. inclined, to really achieve in all areas. And According to Whitcomb, there are many that’s a wonderful goal. I think sometimes different types of burnout, such as from we put so much pressure on ourselves that athletics, academics or relationships. Burnout that academic and athletic and whatever

performance ability, anything like that, can turn very quickly into something negative.”

According to Hoff, she believes that the college-prep environment at STA may make students more susceptible to burnout, saying that she sees two different groups of students at STA. In her opinion, one group is more susceptible to burnout.

“The academic environment of STA is definitely stressful, there are girls who stress with anything less than a 95% and girls who are happy with 80% and above,” Hoff said. “It’s difficult to take a step back and realize the most important part is that you’re learning and are going to be prepared for your future no matter what.”

Whitcomb has seen the amount of students struggling with burnout increase since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While she says that it is not uncommon in a normal year, the presence of burnout is especially amplified this academic year.

“When it comes to burnout with school, I would say this year more so than previous years, given what we’re dealing with in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation, I would say even though we’re here at school and we’re engaged and we’re doing things, so many students are struggling with staying motivated to do their work,” Whitcomb said. “They know they have to do their work, they want to get it in, but it’s been really hard to finish work, even in-class work.”

Hoff has had a similar experience, as the combination of stress from AP classes has combined with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to create amplified stress.

“I think I’m more stressed because it’s my junior year,” Hoff said. “I decided to take five AP/college credit classes, and it’s a lot of work. I don’t regret the workload, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. Because with COVID-19 guidelines (social distancing, masking and quarantining), I just feel more isolated than I did last year. I rarely see my friends outside of school and when I do, it takes a lot of time and planning to make everything COVID-19 safe. I’m really hopeful that once everyone has their vaccine, things

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can go back to normal and I can see my friends more often.”

When students struggling with burnout come to Whitcomb for counseling, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, she focuses on helping that student develop strategies to deal with the stress. She also focuses on building connections with other people in the student’s life, particularly their teachers.

“I think helping students to create connections and relationships with their teachers [is important],” Whitcomb said. “To let them know, ‘Hey, I’m having a hard time, can I get an extension on this? I really need some extra help with this, could we find a time to meet?’ So helping them to advocate for themselves so that they can get what they need in the classroom.”

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You’re just no longer able to find the motivation or the desire to do those things COUNSELER AMANDA WHITCOMB

”

To cope with stress, Hoff tries to drink a lot of water, take a nap or talk to her family and friends. However, when she is especially stressed, she tries to just get the work done.

“Honestly, usually when I’m stressed with homework or a test, I just sit down and crank it out,” Hoff said. “I’ll spend hours and hours of just doing only homework until it’s all done. Which is probably

unhealthy.”

Hirner has a different approach to dealing with stress, typically giving herself a break and returning to her work.

“I feel like, a lot of times if I’ll be up until super late at night studying or doing homework because I either just pushed it back, or I had so much, and I’m just so over it— I’ll just go to sleep and then pick it up in the morning and do the best I can,” Hirner said. “I reward myself. I’ll be like, okay, 20 minutes of homework now, and then you can go get a snack or something. Which doesn’t really help honestly because eventually I get out of that cycle, but I feel like also just setting goals.”

Overall, Hirner appreciates the unique environment at STA, calling it “supportive competitiveness.” While Hirner attended a different school sophomore year, she thinks

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the environment at STA is more conducive to preventing burnout and attributes the increase in burnout and stress primarily to COVID-19.

“The college-prep, going to another school, and my other school was also collegeprep, and it was a lot more competitive with kids because it was 50% international kids, so it was a lot more toxic competitiveness where people would ask instantly, ‘what was your test grade,’ and they would get mad if you did better than them or set the curve,” Hirner said. “But I feel like here, everyone’s just more supportive, and it’s like, oh my god you set the curve, good job! Or with ACT scores, I remember everyone was super chill and supportive about it and it didn’t really matter. You can do the best you can.”B

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APRIL 15, 2021

Identity Evolving

According to the school’s official website, “St. Teresa’s molds students into confident, skilled, and caring young women through a challenging curriculum, an all-female environment, a diverse student body, Christian values, and personal responsibility.” However, there are members of the STA community who do not identify with being female, in which concerns have arisen from these genderqueer and transgender students to administration about their place in the STA mission. These concerns have pushed conversations that have led to policy changes to create a more gender-inclusive environment while abiding by the institution’s core values.

Story by Carmon Baker | Web Editor, Claire Smith | Editor-in-Chief, Sophia Rall | Features Editor Photos by Grace Ashley | Multimedia Editor

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said. “I originally started using she/they pronouns, and then I was like, ‘mmm, this isn’t a vibe.’ Then I moved on to using they/ them and then, where I am now, he/they.

[Gender] was always a construct to me, and I just felt more comfortable breaking that stereotype because for such a long time, I was very much stereotypically what people view a woman as. Dresses and skirts and all of that.

And the only reason I was doing it is because I felt like that was what I was supposed to do.

And then I started realizing I don’t have to do that anymore. And, you know, I shaved my head. And I stopped doing all of that stuff and stopped performing femininity.”

When he came out as transmasculine to administration around winter break, Dodderidge was asked to use a less masculine name and told that they would have to consider him using he/him pronouns.

She/Her

really was planning on not coming out to the school at all,” senior Will Dodderidge said. “I was planning on just toughing out senior year. I would go to school and they would always be like, ‘Ok girls, ladies, let’s do this next. Ladies on virtual.’ And I was like, ‘Oh this is terrible.’… For me, personally, I feel very dysphoric in certain things, which basically just means that I feel uncomfortable presenting as a woman.”

Will Dodderidge is a senior who uses he/ they pronouns. Specifically, he is nonbinary and trans-masculine, meaning that in the future he hopes to formally transition masculinely through testosterone supplements and top surgery.

“I started thinking about [different gender identities] years ago because to me gender has always been a construct — like it doesn’t really make that much sense to me,” Dodderidge

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The figure holds the symbol for genderqueer identity.

“The amount of people who I’ve come out to and asked if I could change my name [to something less masculine] has been alarming,” Dodderidge said. “So they asked if I could change my name, said that going by [he/him] pronouns wasn’t going to work, that they could maybe do they/them pronouns, and I was just like, ‘oh this is really terrible.’

So basically the whole meeting was just very much invalidating of the main part of my identity.”

Dodderidge has had other negative interactions while trying to ensure that faculty and staff are referring to him by his preferred name and pronouns.

“You called me Ms. Will?” Dodderidge said, describing an interaction with a member of the administration. “Don’t know why you did that. You got the name and then just decided to add on Ms.?”

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However, Dodderidge has also had positive experiences with his teachers. After emailing them to ask to be referred to by his preferred name and pronouns, Dodderidge received a mostly positive response.

“Some teachers didn’t email me back,” Dodderidge said. “But they still use Will, which is good. But for the most part my teachers were all like, ‘Yeah just correct me if I get it wrong.

Always going to be here to support you. I want people to feel comfortable in my classroom.’ So that was really nice because I don’t really know what I was expecting with that.” ______________ “The first time I started questioning my gender identity was sophomore year,” senior Jude Patenaude said. “I came across some websites with just lists of identities, including gender identities. I discovered demigirl, which is where you partially identify as a woman and partially identify as agender, or not having a gender. And I was like, ‘That’s so cool! That totally sounds like me.’”

Patenaude is the president of the GenderSexuality Alliance (GSA) who now identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.

“So I started identifying as [demigirl] for a while, but over the summer I figured out that I have gender dysphoria, which is where you feel that certain aspects of yourself, like your body or your hair or your clothes, don’t match the gender you perceive yourself as,” Patenaude said. “That pushed me to go further and explore more ways I might like to identify myself.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, gender dysphoria is “the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics.

Transgender and gender-nonconforming people might experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives.” One aspect of combating gender dysphoria is dressing as the gender that causes the most personal inner peace. Dodderidge notes that the STA uniform — specifically the skirt — can perpetuate feelings of gender dysphoria.

“We wear skirts — you’re very much kind of forced into the gendered box of how you’re supposed to present yourself, even if you are gender conforming, you’re cisgender, there’s not a lot of creativity you can put into the way you look at St. Teresa’s,” Dodderidge said.

“Which makes sense, I mean, it’s a uniform.

But there’s only one option for pants and you can’t even get them through the Star Shop, you have to go and get them yourself. The idea that everyone at St. Teresa’s is a woman is constantly being reinforced, even though that’s definitely not the case. I think it’s hard for some people to explore their gender identity while attending

an all-girls school, when it being all-girls is constantly being forced down people’s throats.

I don’t know if it’s necessarily a bad thing, but constantly gendering every single thing that we do ever gets annoying.”

Sophomore Ava Martinez — who uses they/ them pronouns — does not personally feel restricted in their identity through the school’s uniform.

“I don’t really have an issue with it,” Martinez said. “I’ve been wearing uniforms my

A group of students stand in the parking lot after recieving pins from seniors Josie fox and lauren peters feb. 1. White, green and purple are the colors of the genderqueer pride flag.

whole life, so I’m really used to the skirts, and they don’t really make me feel dysphoric at all.

And there’s the option for pants too sometimes, which is cool for days when I don’t feel like wearing a skirt. But it doesn’t really bother me that much.”

Martinez began questioning their identity in middle school, and began seriously reflecting on it during quarantine. They were uncomfortable expressing themselves as completely feminine through their appearance.

“I always had an issue with my body and body confidence,” Martinez said. “In middle school I started to go on the internet more, and I was exposed to influencers who were transgender or queer in general. That exposed me to different types of identities and put the language to how I felt... I feel like I just kind of express [gender] in the way I dress. I don’t really dress too feminine, too masculine — I’m kind of just pretty in between. I feel like my hair, I cut it really short, helped me look a lot more androgynous, which is what I like. It’s just like, subtle things like that. I don’t really do anything big.”

Senior Ange Dickson identifies as

genderfluid, and they are the vice president of GSA. Although they were raised Catholic, they no longer identify with the religion after recent events at STA. “I am genderfluid, which means that my gender identity sort of feels like it changes every day,” Dickson said. “I used to describe it that it didn’t feel like my gender changed, but my pronouns would. I suppose that description still stands to a certain extent, but there are definitely some days when I do sometimes feel it a little more physically or emotionally.

I’m usually on the more masculine side. I have days when I do feel more feminine, but those are generally more few and far between, and I’ve been experimenting a little bit with neopronouns on those days, but nothing solid.”

Dickson came out to the senior class through the class GroupMe in January. They are grateful to have their gender identity more widely-known at school.

“In the past couple months, hearing people use my preferred name of Ange has just been really nice at school,” Dickson said. “For a while, I didn’t really realize how much the other name bothered me, and there are days when it bothers me less. But, overall, being called Ange is just so much of a better feeling so far.” ______________ The Dart intended to release coverage on gender identity in their fifth issue — distributed on Feb. 12. When collecting sources via a poll on the Dart’s Instagram — @ dartnewsonline — the story was brought to president Siabhan May-Washington’s attention by a community member. As the president of STA, it is her responsibility to ensure that the article was falling in line with the school’s current educational and journalistic guidelines.

“The Dart story was originally brought to my attention by some concerned STA community stakeholders who saw a Dart Instagram story polling students about their gender identity,” May-Washington said in an email. “When I talked to the Dart sponsor about the poll, she was unaware that the Dart staff was conducting such research. My thought process in pausing the article was to ensure that journalistic protocols were being followed, and also to ensure greater education about gender identity could take place within the STA community before the article’s publication.”

On Jan. 25, administration asked the Dart to pause the release of the story.

“When the story was postponed, and I didn’t have an explanation as to why, I was definitely very angry and upset,” Patenaude said. “I did feel like we were being silenced as a community, and the Dart was being silenced and all that. My initial reaction, I made some

18 CENTERSPREAD educational flyers, that I now have hanging around the school, that are just about the basics of terminology and what you should do and how you should act when it comes to allyship.”

Administration sent an email Jan. 29 to Dart staff members and GSA members, as well as their parents, addressing the rising grievances surrounding the pause on the Dart’s story. The email states that, while the administration supports the Dart and GSA, they had private information that meant the timing of the article to be published in the fifth issue would be “ill-advised.” The main concern from the GSA recipients of the email was the violation of privacy, as it revealed their GSA membership to their parents, who might otherwise be unaware of their involvement.

“Words don’t describe how horrified and devastated and terrified I was in that moment,” Patenaude said. “And for several days after that.

That obviously wasn’t the administration’s intention, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened and that it did out students to their parents. Yeah, I just remember shaking in my bed and not being able to sleep, just thinking about these kids and what was going to happen to them if their parents knew. Because the reality of [being outed] to homophobic and transphobic parents is incredibly brutal.”

Dickson had a similar reaction to the email being sent. According to Dickson, GSA had promised a safe space for students where they could participate without parental knowledge.

However, they felt like the email broke this promise and put members in danger.

“My mom can tell you that I just

APRIL 15, 2021

kind of sat there crying for a while,” Dickson said. “It was running through my brain, I’ve heard so many stories about how people have gotten hurt because of being outed to their parents and the damage that could and has been done to them. The fear that I felt for people in our community, who we had assured it was a safe space, it was just very harmful and made me angry and made me want to fight more than anything else… It just didn’t feel like it hit administration that not everyone’s parents love them unconditionally.”

May-Washington sent the email in an effort to inform necessary figures surrounding the article that there was no intention to silence the voice of the community.

“After making the decision to pause the article, some students, parents and other STA community stakeholders wrongly misinterpreted the article pause to be the administration’s effort to silence voices and squash the gender identity story,” MayWashington said. “As President of STA, part of my responsibility is to keep our community informed. I sent a blindcopy email to students and parents of the Dart and [GSA] to provide accurate information. The STA faculty sponsors of both groups provided me with student roster names for the email.”

She continued: “Membership in GSA is open to all, so many allies are also part of this group.

Parents are entitled to information about the classes, clubs and extracurricular groups their children participate in. It was definitely necessary to send direct communication to clear up the falsehoods that were mounting.

Looking back if I were to handle it differently, I would have engaged in more dialogue with the GSA moderator to advise students of the forthcoming information.”

Feb. 4 the Board released a working statement, recognizing she/her or they/them pronouns.

Dodderidge was upset by this announcement, which was delivered virtually during advisory.

“A lot of the responses at the school have made me upset,”

Senior Will Dodderidge

Sophomore Ava Martinez

Dodderidge said. “Because while they are trying to validate people’s identities, they are invalidating them at the same time. Like when they sent out the video about allowing they/ them pronouns, they used she/her pronouns for the student body the whole video and called everyone girls… what happened should have never happened, and admin should really take responsibility for their actions because they basically outed a bunch of kids who were under the impression that that would not happen to them and were under the impression that they had some privacy and security.”

Dickson was also upset by the announcement, as the GSA officers had asked administration for more open communication on issues, and they felt like this request was not fulfilled.

“Well, I remember, in the moment, watching that announcement, [incorrect language] wasn’t the only thing that bothered

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me about that announcement,” Dickson said.

“One thing that hit me in particular is that, literally the day before, the day before that announcement, I remember meeting with administration and basically saying that we just want you to come to us about this kind of thing first. Because if they had come to us about the email that was sent out by Dr. MayWash, then that wouldn’t have happened the way it did. And so we were literally just like, whatever you’re doing, come to us before you release something about it. And in that week, they didn’t come to us before releasing that statement. And it just, I don’t know, it sort of reaffirmed the feeling that I had that we weren’t being listened to enough.”

Senior Juliet Barnett created a Change. org petition Feb. 3 calling the administration to address growing concerns surrounding the email to GSA as well as the paused story.

The petition quickly gained traction on social media platforms such as Snapchat, receiving almost 2,000 signatures. The following day, Barnett was asked to meet with administration to update and remove the petition.

“Originally, I started it after, [in] the senior class GroupMe, we were talking about some of the issues [the] administration had and people were kind of upset with that,” Barnett said.

“Someone — I’m not even sure who — said we should start a petition, and I was like ‘Oh, I know how to do that.’ I set one up and it took maybe 10 minutes on my phone to do, and

Senior jude patenaude

then I sent the link. It went a lot further than I thought it would.”

After speaking with the administration, the description of the petition was changed Feb. 4 to state: “I was fast acting in starting the petition before talking with the administration and understanding the changes they were planning on making. Part of STA’s mission is to love the dear neighbor without distinction… I am in agreement with administration that the petition needs to be taken down, it has served its purpose.”

Liz Baker was called on specifically to handle the petition due to her role as the principal for student affairs. She felt that the petition did not adequately express the actions the administration was taking to assess the current situation, rather it took an accusatory stance.

“I would say my opinion of it was I didn’t like the accusation that came out through the petition, because it made me sad,” Baker said.

“That was not the point or the whole reasoning around [administrative steps]. So that’s really where I was coming from, from it. But I knew that from there, that there was going to have to be big conversations... That’s [what] my biggest conversations were about: how are we going to come together to speak about this and then create a solution from it.”

In Barnett’s perspective, part of that solution

development program conducted by Children’s Mercy to obtain a greater understanding of gender pronouns and LGBTQ+ communities.

The program — “Creating an Inclusive Environment for LGBTQ+ Youth” — facilitated conversations around mental health, proper terminology and community resources.

“I think that was clear that that’s one arena [in professional development] that we need to definitely keep our eye on is LGBTQIA because we are generationally different, ‘’ Baker said.

“If you look at our faculty and staff, we have people in their 60s, and we have people in their 20s. That’s huge. And so what people may know about LGBTQIA, issues, concerns, mental health, all of that needs to be on our radar.

It really all stems out of diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s that I feel like we should always be more proactive than reactive, right?”

Senior vice president and chief equity and inclusion officer at Children’s Mercy Michelle Wimes was one of three presenters from

is addressing the faith aspect of LGBTQ+ conversations. As a Catholic institution, she believes that the convergence of those communities is extremely important.

“There definitely should be [a faith aspect in education regarding LGBTQ+ students] because we are a faith-based school, even though personally I don’t associate with that,” Barnett said. “But there are teachers that come to the school to be part of a faith-based community, so having even just a perspective of someone who is tied to both LGBTQ+ people and faith come in and speak about how they connect the two would be super interesting.”

Monday, March 8, faculty and staff were asked to attend an optional professional

Senior Ange Dickson

20 CENTERSPREAD the student’s courage, because sometimes it’s really hard for students to come forward and to have those kinds of conversations with us and with adults, and certainly with faculty and staff,” Wimes said. “So, thanking the student for the gift of their story...We also talked about honoring the student, and that it’s okay to ask the student how the student wants to be referred to.”

The overarching theme of the program was compassion for LGBTQ+ students.

“I think that the staff at St. Teresa’s generally wants to be compassionate and

“

Stop the homophobic and transphobic language and jokes, read widely, ackowledge our differences, have fun together. stop seeing the other as other Nancy corcoran

“

Children’s Mercy at the March 8 program. The program began with an acknowledgement of the difficulty and discomfort surrounding conversations regarding LGBTQ+ issues.

“We also said to staff that there’s no magical solution,” Wimes said. “Sometimes, we are in a situation where we have to sit with discomfort but also give people grace and understand that different people are coming from different perspectives. We also acknowledge that there are other components to this conversation about being inclusive — there are religious implications, political implications, emotional implications.”

The program had three main objectives — to create a common language around gender identity and expression, to provide pastoral care and mental health resources for LGBTQ+ students and to increase cultural competency and fluency surrounding LGBTQ+ issues.

Wimes and the other presenters defined the meanings of LGBTQ+ identities, then gave data and statistics regarding mental health and other issues LGBTQ+ students may be facing. “[We] gave a lot of data on the types of issues that our LGBTQ students face — the bullying that happens, the anxiety, the stress, the depression that happens with those students and we went over the mental health statistics,” Wimes said. “We talked about pronouns and watched a video on pronouns.

Then, we just opened it up and asked for feedback and asked the staff what resonated with them and any questions that they might have. We just really emphasized that LGBTQ people and students deserve and need to be treated with equitable respect, and that their lived experience may be different than someone who’s not LGBTQIA.” The program also included examples of ways to dialogue about LGBTQ issues.

“One example that we gave was appreciating

APRIL 15, 2021

understanding, and wants to be supportive, but in many respects they just didn’t know how to do that,” Wimes said. “So we gave them a forum to kind of share how they could go about doing that.”

In the Board of Directors meeting March 10, they reviewed school policies and tackled how to move forward with the conversation of genderqueer identities. Representatives from the Board did not respond to requests for

comment — administration leaders were asked to speak on behalf of the Board.

“I feel like the Board is very open to hearing lots of perspectives, I really do,” Baker said.

“The final perspective of that is that we created a subcommittee to talk about either — not necessarily policy because the Board doesn’t really write policy — but protocol and policy, kind of what we’ve been talking about in our meetings because it is simple. It really seems big and complex, but it’s pretty simple… Not simple in the sense of one of our policies, but simple in the sense of here are the things that we need to address.”

May-Washington is proud of the progress being made through various conversations with students, faculty and the Board of how policies can shift in the future.

“Meaningful conversations are always beneficial,” May-Washington said. “In accordance with our mission and core beliefs, we work hard to foster a community built on respect and dignity for all. There have been many ongoing conversations with student leaders of GSA, the Dart, faculty and staff members, the Sisters of St. Joseph, parents and the Board of Directors. I am very proud to announce that the STA Board of Directors has formed a special advisory committee to discuss LGBTQ issues. The underlying narrative will always be to recognize and respect all people.

We will continue to listen and make changes in accordance with our mission and charism to love the dear neighbor without distinction and core values.”

Although Baker is enthusiastic about creating inclusive policies for trans students, she also has wrestled with contradictions with STA’s Catholic and female identity.

“The hardest part about this is being able to be there for students who may not feel accepted at STA when we are Catholic, and we’re called

The markings of gender history at STA

Since Feb. 2021, the St. Teresa’s Academy administration and board have been actively writing policy regarding gender pronoun usage at St. Teresa’s. This policy will provide protection for students on a case by case basis regarding their gender identity.

Alternative Coverage by Josie Fox | Opinion Editor

the gender sexuality association (GSA) is established

2013

Administration aired a live announcement during lunch to address the board’s efforts in writing new policy

Emergency Board meeting to discuss potential policy

Professional development for techer education about gender pronouns and LGBTQ+

board meeting to discuss gender pronoun usage at sta and established a sub-committee that is part of the Wellness committee to work on policy/protocal surrounding LGBTQ+ considerations

Feb. 4 2021

Feb. 17 2021

March 8 2021

March 10 2021

21

DESIGNED BY CARMON BAKER

gender in ways that had never crossed my mind. They reached out to my ignorance and gave me books to read and shared their life stories with me.”

Corcoran explored ministry with members of the LGBTQ+ community through her two year sabbatical from 2015-2017. This ministry involved attending Transgender Town Halls and simply being present.

“Presence means showing up,” Corcoran said. “When the Missouri State Assembly does its yearly attempt to pretend that LGBTQIA humans need to be controlled by new laws,

“

The hardest part about this is being able to be there for students who may not feel accepted at STA when we are Catholic, and we’re called to love the dear neighbor without distinction.

Liz Baker

“

to love the dear neighbor without distinction,” Baker said. “I take great care in that because I’m Catholic and Catholic to the core. Catholic is also Christian and Christian means following Christ, and so that’s an examination that I have to do constantly to say ‘where am I’ or ‘where are we with the word of Christ?’ Because that is where we’re coming from: we’re all-Catholic and all-girls... You know that’s the hard part: how do you accept and love and be there for somebody and also have a mission that says we’re female… There’s not an easy answer to it because the easy answer would be, you know, we accept everybody for who they are, and that’s easy — is it who we are as an institution?

That’s not so easy.”

With this specific situation, Baker believes that her faith is guiding her and the institution into a period of change, specifically changes in policy.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, highly,” Baker said. “So I feel like always, when something creates some kind of conflict, or seems to be messy, it’s the Holy Spirit saying, ‘Let’s look at this.’ So that’s where I come from with it is like: okay, well, this is a good Holy Spirit time for us to create policy around this.”

The Congregation for Catholic Education — the organization responsible for universities, faculties and institutions under Ecclesiastical authority— published a 28-page long document discussing gender and sexuality June 10, 2019.

The document states, “Gender theory (especially in its most radical forms) speaks of a gradual process of denaturalisation, that is a move away from nature and towards an absolute option for the decision of the feelings of the human subject. In this understanding of things, the view of both sexuality identity and the family become subject to the same ‘liquidity’ and ‘fluidity’ that characterize other aspects of postmodern culture, often founded on nothing more than a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants, or momentary desires provoked by emotional impulses and the will of the individual, as opposed to anything based on the truths of existence.”

At the March 8 faculty and staff meeting, Sister Nancy Corcoran also presented a religious perspective. She is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Carondelet and served as the Catholic Chaplain at Wellesley College from 2007- 2015.

While serving as Chaplain, she was introduced to transgender and nonbinary students and described these encounters as “eye-opening.”

“It was not until I arrived at Wellesley College in 2007 that I began an actual ministry with lesbian and transgender humans,” Corcoran said. “The students ‘played with’

I accompany LGBTQIA humans and their parents to hearings. So I show up and go with humans and their families. This is when being a nun is so very useful.”

Corcoran believes discrimination toward the LGBTQ+ community stems from ignorance, but this can be combatted by knowing LGBTQ+ people and acknowledging shared humanity.

“In 1969, when the patrons of the gay bar Stonewall revolted over police harassment, beginning the Gay Liberation Movement, the United States began to change,” Corcoran said.

“Why? Because LGBTQ humans began to come out to their families and friends. Suddenly, ‘they’ became us! They were now my brother, my sister, my aunt, my uncle, my child. The police no longer raid such gathering places.

Jesus understood this when he told us to love one another. Love causes change.”

Corcoran would encourage students to read books regarding the intersection of LGBTQ+ rights and the Catholic Church, research transgender issues and listen to transgender peoples’ experiences.

“I believe you all are, at least attempting like

the rest of us, to do as Jesus did,” Corcoran said.

“Stop the homophobic/transphobic language and jokes, read widely, acknowledge our differences, have fun together …stop seeing the other as other.” ______________ Moving forward, Patenaude and Dickson are working to better educate the STA community, and are specifically planning events to give queer students a platform to share their stories.

GSA is also hosting a LGBTQ+ poetry reading April 14.

“I think people are still a little bit awkward about asking questions, especially now that it’s been a couple months, and it’s sort of fading out a little bit, so people are more hesitant to ask questions, I guess,” Dickson said. “We’re actually hoping to have an event by the end of the year where students and faculty and staff will have the opportunity to sort of ask a panel of students questions about pretty much anything. And we’re hoping that that will sort of start up the conversations between students more.”

Patenaude understands the importance of creating a conversation at STA. Combating ignorance on terminology and sharing personal narratives, they believe, is essential to that conversation.

“I definitely think it’s good that we are talking about gender identity at school because we just haven’t before ever,” Patenaude said.

“There hasn’t been a space to do that at an ‘all-girls school.’ So the fact that we’re talking about it at all is a good thing. And in general I haven’t heard anyone say, ‘Oh those terrible people.’ I do think we could do with some more education on terminology and experiences because I think people just aren’t informed, which makes sense because we haven’t been talking about it. So that’s the next step.”

STA students and administration will continue to take steps in policy, education and creating an environment where all student voices can be heard. Gender identity is a personal journey, and according to Dodderidge, that journey is interpretive.

“Gender is fake,” Dodderidge said. “Identify how you want to identify. It’s nobody else’s business. Pronouns don’t have to have a correlation with gender. You can be nonbinary use he/him pronouns and present as a woman.

It does not matter. It is literally up to you. You can do whatever you want.”

B

22 PERSPECTIVES

APRIL 15 2021

Why I love Marvel Growing up I was always looking for something new to use as my inspiration for my goals and aspirations. I found this ultimately in the form of a billion dollar movie franchise, “The Avengers” series, that has started it all.

Story by Kyra Fieger | Social Media Team

A

s we grow as individuals and develop into adults we are demanded by society to take on an increasing amount of responsibilities. The normal standard is projected as focusing solely on producing a respectable future and dropping all childlike behavior. I’m nearly matured and have much to learn from the world, but I refuse to push away my childhood. When I was 7 years old and first introduced to the total American experience of the movies: the popcorn, big theaters, and cheap tickets, I came across my favorite series that would later transform into a representation of my childhood.

As the credits rose and the audience stood, my heart was attune to the theme music of “The Avengers” blasting throughout the theater. Little did I know that this moment would develop into a heartfelt relationship with the series.

As a kid I was a nerd when it came to anything action packed and fictional — I loved grasping the idea of heroes and heroines fighting against all evil in the world. You could say I had dreams and aspirations of filling that role when I grew older. Now of course that hasn’t happened yet, as I mature my goals have sadly become more realistic, molded by society’s standards to be less creative and more assertive. Although, my love for “The Avengers” movies has yet to change.

Some may say I’m a junky for anything Marvel, but I’m simply holding

onto a comfort from my childlike self, since many of these memories have become hard to recall. Growing up I was always close with my dad, mainly because we shared similar interests and could connect over these likes and dislikes. He was the one who first introduced me to the movies, knowing I would love them.

I admire each scene, the consistency and little details always come together.

In “Captain America: Winter Soldier” the phrase “on your left” was used as a banter between Steve Rogers and The Falcon, which later developed into a touching line in “Avengers Endgame.”

I love trying to relate back to all the characters through their emotions. My habitual act of doing this developed into a comfortable feeling that would rush through me whenever I watched one of the movies. They simply never get old and as the series ended with the movie “Avengers: Endgame,” I felt a huge wave of nostalgia rush through me, realizing that this too was coming to an end.

Going into high school was definitely a big call from adulthood as I found myself taking on numerous responsibilities (volleyball, loads of homework, a job etc.) and becoming more exposed to the world around me.

This movie franchise has been a steady comfort, always there for me, and when the series came to an end it made the real world realer.

After lots of tears whilst the credits rose, hugging those around me, I realized that “The Avengers” franchise

played a vital part of my childhood.

The ending of the series meant I was finally growing up. I can relate the series back to how one cares for and keeps their childhood stuffed animal.

“The Avengers” series brings me a sense of serenity and comfort that no one can top, as would a childhood stuffed animal. I find myself always going back to them when I’m in dire need of nostalgia or want a mood booster. I will always remember the loud laughter and cries from the theaters. How after every movie premiere, the audience would walk out in silence, simply in awe of what they had witnessed.

I will always keep with me the memories these movies have given me, they helped develop me into who I am today. I am truly grateful that I was able to experience such an amazing saga and encourage others to look into the series.

With one final point, Team Cap all the way! b

23

DESIGNED BY SYDNEY WALDRON

The Myers-Briggs test has changed my life The Myers-Briggs will always be my favorite personality test because it has given me such a deeper insight to my own personality than any other test has.

Story by Ellie Buttel | Social Media Team

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rowing up, I would always take little internet quizzes to tell me what Disney princess I was or which Cheetah Girl fit me best. I remember always thinking that the results of these tests would give me a playful insight as to what kind of person I was, but as I got older, I realized that was not entirely the case. The Disney tests couldn’t possibly give me any insight on myself.

My mom was the first person to tell me to take the Myers Briggs test.

She has always been interested in psychology and encouraged me to take the Enneagram test in the past.

The enneagram, while having similar intent of giving the person insight into their personality, gives you a broader personality type numbered 1-9.

Personally, the Myers Briggs seemed more exciting because it told me multiple aspects of my own personality.

On the Myers Briggs test, you are given a statement such as, “You make a backup plan for a backup plan.” Then rate on a scale from 1-7 how much you agree or disagree with the statement.

This question is followed by 90 other questions which will determine your personality summed up in a four letter code. At first I was hesitant. I questioned why I should spend my time doing this. However, when I finally gave in and took the test, I was curious as to how this little internet test suddenly knew most of the things I had never even realized about myself.

You might be wondering, what can the

internet tell me about myself that I don’t already know. My answer? Almost everything. For some background, my four letter code is ENFP. These may look like some random letters to you, but in just a moment you’ll discover their meaning.

The Myers Briggs tests you on four different categories: mind, energy, nature and tactics. For each individual category, you’re given two options.

Mind: introverted versus extroverted.

Energy: intuitive versus observant.

Nature: feeling versus thinking.

Tactics: judging versus prospecting. To summarize, the Myers Briggs test taught me that I’m an extroverted mind, I have an intuitive energy, my nature is feeling and I use prospective tactics.

When I self reflect, I notice that I have taken the information from this test and use it almost daily. I’ve always known I felt like an extrovert, spending time with other people is where I get my energy and ultimately what I look forward to. However, I would occasionally wonder, “Why do I not want to hangout tonight,” or would be concerned if I felt introverted tendencies. The results of the test taught me that I’m 37% introverted, making my majority 63% extroverted. So as much as I loved spending time with other people, it’s ok to not just belong to one category and I can have both extroverted and introverted tendencies.

After receiving your four letter code, the website leads you further on to information about your own personality

traits. This part of the test is my absolute favorite because it provides information about your strengths and weaknesses, romantic relationships, friendships, parenthood, career paths and workplace habits. It even says ENFPs will likely enjoy journalism, which is exactly what I’m doing right now.

Another one of my favorite things about knowing my personality type is that you can see what celebrities and fictional characters belong to the same personality. Some of my fellow ENFPs include Rapunzel, Jennifer Aniston, Danielle Radcliff and the genie from Aladdin. The rarest personality type is INFJ, which is believed to make up 1% of the world. INFJs are introverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. Some famous INFJs include Taylor Swift, Hillary Duff and Carrie Fisher.

By now, most of my friends and family have taken the test simply because I forced them to. Discovering people’s personality types has helped me to be a better friend to them and understand a little more about them than what reaches the surface. I hope every single person who reads this takes the Meyers Briggs test. I promise you, it’s worth the 10 minutes of your day. Taking the Myers Briggs test is not only helpful to self reflect and take time to explore new ideas about yourself, but also provide advice for the future. I have used my results in almost everything I do since I’ve taken the test, and I promise you will too! b

24 SPORTS FEATURE

APRIL 15, 2021

Transitioning the Athletic World Kansas and Missouri are navigating how to include transgender athletes within school athletic programs. However, the opinions and decisions surrounding these policies are passionately mixed.

Story by Claire Smith | Editor-in-Chief Graphics by Sydney Waldron | Design Editor

O

n March 18, the Kansas Senate voted 24-10 to pass a bill banning transgender athletes in women’s school sports.

According to KMBC News, Republican State Senator Renee Erickson believes that this bill creates a more “equal and level playing field for women and girls,” while Democrat Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes claims the bill to be “rooted in bigotry.”

“I don’t appreciate several of my male colleagues telling me how they want to protect the underdog, how men are superior,” Sykes said during a debate about the bill. “I actually find that rather misogynistic and rude. Excluding women who are trans hurts all women.”

Overall, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly called the bill “regressive” but would not promise a veto.

Brandon Boulware is a Kansas City native, business lawyer and father to four children, including a transgender daughter. Boulware testified March 15 in front of Missouri House of Representatives emergency issues committee to ask lawmakers to block legislation that would be discriminatory to transgender youth. His speech quickly went viral — eventually reposted by Jennifer Lawrence on her Instagram page — and was reported on by many major news outlets, including

CBS News. When reaching out for comment, Boulware praised the Dart for covering this issue but asked that his public testimony be used.

“I came here today as a parent to share my story,” Boulware said during his testimony. “It will affect my daughter. It will mean that she cannot play on the girls’ volleyball team, or dance squad or tennis team. I ask you, please don’t take that away from my daughter, or the countless others like her who are out there.”

St. Teresa’s Academy abides by the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) in how to conduct sports. In regard to transgender participation, the MSHSAA handbook states: “A transgender student is defined as a student whose consistent gender identity or expression does not match the sex assigned to him or her at birth as reflected on the student’s birth certificate and school records.”

Students can continue to participate in sex-separated sports in accordance with their sex at birth if they’re not taking any form of medical or homone treatment. However, if a student is currently receiving any form of hormonal treatment to transition from female to male, according to MSHSAA, “may compete on a boys’ team, but is no longer eligible to compete on a girls’

team without changing that team status to a co-ed team.”

If transitioning from male to female, “may continue to compete on a boys’ team but may not compete on a girls’ team, without changing it to a co-ed team, until one calendar year of documented medical/hormone treatment and/or suppression is completed.”

Head of the athletic department Ty Abney notes that if a student wished to transition and participate in athletics, they would have to abide by MSHSAA guidelines. But in STA’s instance, the athletic department has never had to navigate that situation before.

“Honestly, I mean there’s a lot of stuff that, especially on this, I would have to email the state and say, ‘What do I do?’

You know what I mean?” Abney said. B

DESIGNED BY RACHEL ROBINSON

SPORTS UPDATES

25

What you missed in sports.....

National Sports News Baylor wins NCAA men’s basketball title

Baylor defeated Gonzaga 86-70, earning their first men’s basketball national title Monday, April 5. Most brackets and statistics suggested that Gonzaga would take the victory with an undefeated season.

However, Baylor as the underdog proved successful (ESPN).

photo courtesy of tribune news service

photo courtesy of tribune news service

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA

Stanford defeats Arizona for NCAA women’s basketball title

Stanford won the women’s NCAA basketball championship, defeating Arizona 54-53. Hayley Jones won the Most Outstanding Player award.

She shot 67.8% from the floor over the course of the last two Final Four games — the fourth best shooting percentage of any player in women’s NCAA history (ESPN).

MLB changes All-Star game location

Major League Baseball announced moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta due to the recently passed voting policies. The policies are receiving backlash from civil rights groups in concern of restricting voting for people of color. According to ESPN, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box” (ESPN).

Athlete of the Issue

Coming up APRIL

15

Varsity lacrosse game vs. Lee’s Summit North High School

APRIL

17

Varsity soccer game vs. Blue Valley High School

MADDIE GENTRY APRIL

20 Varsity track meet vs. Central Academy of Excellence

Senior Maddie Gentry has been on the Varsity golf, basketball and lacrosse teams since her freshman year. Gentry is grateful for STA sports because they’ve exposed her to many new people and allowed her to make new friends. “I have definitely grown closer to my own classmates through being on a team with them,” Gentry said. “But I also feel like sports is the way that I’ve met people outside of my class. Without these teams I definitely wouldn’t be friends with as many underclassmen now or upperclassmen when I was younger, so I’m super thankful for that.” Gentry is committed to play golf and lacrosse at Rockhurst University next year.

26 COMMUNITY

APRIL 15, 2021

Home For the Homeless

With an estimated 2,000 homeless people in the Kansas City area, as well as homeless camps developing all across the city, the need for services and organizations has been a top priority. One corporation that has been an extreme help is Morning Glory Ministries, located in the heart of Downtown.

Story by Lily Sage | Opinion Editor

Grahpics by Sydney Allen | Photo Editor

A group of multicolored tents lie in the intersection of Westport road and Southwest Trafficway April 1. These tents were set up as a pair of warming tents for the homeless during a cold Valentine’s Day, but have grown into more than a dozen tents. photo by katie massman

27

DESIGNED BY SYDNEY ALLEN

I

can just look at someone, see what they need and then I can actually help [them],” Morning Glory Ministries’ director of social media and volunteers Jen Tran said. “You just get to know the [people] really well at Morning Glory, like our guests really feel at home.”

Morning Glory Ministries, located in Downtown Kansas City, is a non-profit organization that works toward helping the homeless community continue to be part of society. Associated with the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Morning Glory has many roles when it comes to helping the community, like providing a safe place to stay as well as meals. The idea for Morning Glory began when a secretary who worked at the Cathedral noticed many unhoused people would come to the church to ask for food. “[The secretary] would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bring them to work, and if someone came and asked for food, she was prepared. And that kind of evolved into the [staff members] grilling around lunchtime, and anyone who needed a meal could come. So that’s kind of how we started serving food,” Tran said. “We serve breakfast, Tuesday through Friday, and then lunch on the weekends.”

Tran used to be the coordinator for the Emergency Assistance Program, which along with the meal service, are the main aspects of Morning Glory’s service to the homeless community. During an Emergency Assistance meeting, a Morning Glory staff member talks face-to-face with a member of the homeless community in

order to provide the basic necessities that person might need.

“We always, like forever and ever, did emergency assistance and I think the coolest thing we do for [the program] is giving people their identification,” Tran said.

Morning Glory’s staff helps those living on the streets find their birth certificates and a photo ID. Along with identification, the staff members can obtain certain licenses people might need for a job, like a food safety license so someone could work in a restaurant.

Junior CC McCullough is a member of the National Charity League (NCL) and has volunteered at Morning Glory over five different times through the organization.

McCullough understands the effort the staff and volunteers give in order to serve each day.

“I think it’s just so amazing, how the people are willing to come and just help,” McCullough said.

The organization has a huge outreach in the community—serving over 150 people each week—since they are one of the last shelters still operating in the heart of Downtown. One person in specific who Morning Glory was able to help through a rough period in his life was Greg Harris.

Due to the help he received from this organization, Harris was able to completely turn his life around for the better.

“I would live in a shelter for sleep at night, as well as [at] the golden dome Catholic Church on Broadway,” Harris said. The Cathedral of the Immaculate

W 11th St.

The Cathedral of the immicaulate Conception

Morning Glory Ministries

W 12th St.

Broadway BLvd.

“

Conception is the Catholic Church that Harris mentions; Morning Glory is connected and associated with this church.

However, in response to Camp 6ixx, which is currently located right across the street from First Watch and Half Priced Books on Westport Road, Morning Glory is unable to provide the support that is needed.

“If someone’s staying in Westport or using services around Westport, then [they’re] kind of out of our dominion,” Tran said.

The Kansas City Homeless Union (KCHU) holds the account @mwhomelesscollective on Instagram, and on the account, they describe themselves as “unhoused leaders and housed allies organizing to build collective power.”

This account is responsible for sending out information and keeping the people of Kansas City updated. According to the KCHU, what started out as pop up warming tents has now expanded into a 30-tent camp. Camp 6ixx, along with a larger community right outside of City Hall, have been threatened and panic-stricken that they might be “sweeped,” or destroyed, by the Kansas City government.

However, on April 8, KCHU was able to negotiate with Mayor Quinton Lucas’ office in order to provide housing and jobs for the unhoused community. According to the KC Tenant’s Instagram (@kctenants), the agreement came after KCHU staged a unparalleled two-month occupation on the lawn of City Hall. B

28 LAST LOOK

APRIL 15 2021

2021 Oscar Who will take home the gold? 2021 Oscar Predictions for the 93 Academy Award, which will take place on Sunday b April 25. Predictions for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Picture, Best supporting Actress and Best Foreign Language Film.

Story and Graphics by Sydney Waldron | Design Editor

Best Motion Picture: “Nomadland” This critically acclaimed movie comes from director Chloé Zhao and tells the story of Fern, a woman in her 60s who loses everything during the Recession of 2008 and takes a physical and spiritual journey across the American West.

Anupama Chopra,a writer for the Film Companion, notes the beautiful cinematography and the excellent acting performance by Frances McDormand in her review of the movie.

“This is a film you want to see on the largest screen you can find, to take in the stark beauty of the wide shots and the way the light caresses the creases on Fern’s face,” Chopra said in her review of the movie for FIlm Companion.

This movie won big at the Golden Globes, winning the Golden Globe for both the Best Picture Drama, and Best Director of a Motion Picture. By winning both of these awards Nomadland is a favorite for the Best Picture Oscar.

Best Female Actor in a Leading Role: Viola Davis “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” features two show stopping performances from Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. This movie set 1927 as Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), a famous blues singer, struggles with song production in Chicago. Davis-won a SAG for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture and was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Actress in Motion Picture but lost to Andra Day. Day plays Billie Holiday in the Oscar nominated motion picture, “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday.’’, However, Day was not nominated for a SAG, thus it is more likely that Davis will take home the Oscar.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Chadwick Boseman The next prediction also comes from the motion picture, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and is for the late Chadwick Boseman. Since Boseman died in August 2020, this is his final performance, and according to Joe Morgenstern, a writer for the Wall Street Journal it is his best one yet.

“The final performance of Chadwick Boseman, who died while the film was in post-production, isn’t what you might have hoped for under the circumstances—it’s even better,” Joe Morgensternsaid in his review for The Wall Street Journal.

Boseman also won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture and the SAG for Outstanding Performance by Male Actor in a Leading Role— making him the clear favorite for the Oscar.

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DESIGNED BY SYDNEY WALDRON

Predictions Best Supporting Female Actor: Youn Yu-jung The motion picture “Minari” shows the struggle of a newly immigrated Korean family trying to navigate their new life in the American South.

Youn Yu-jung plays the Korean grandmother who struggles at first to have a relationship with her grandkids.

While Yuh-jung won the SAG for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, she was not nominated for a Golden Globe.

Best Supporting Male Actor: Daniel Kaluuya Daniel Kaluuya played Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Party leader, in “Judas and the Black Messiah.” This movie is based off American his story, as the FBI offers Bill O’Neal protection if he gathers information on Fred Hampton. This movie has been nominated for numerous Oscars, including Best Picture. Mark Kermode, observer and film critic for The Guardian, attributes part of the success of the movie to Kaluuya.

“Kaluuya’s Hampton is steadfast and determined; inspirational in public, unexpectedly shy in person. Physically bulked up but often softly spoken, he’s a fully rounded character into whom Kaluuya injects empathy and a touch of magic,” Kermode said in his review of the film in The Guardian.

Kaluuya won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and the SAG for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.

What do they mean?

The Screen Actors Guilds, or the SAGS are awards given by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for the best in television and film of that year. These awards often predict Oscar nominations and winners.

The Golden Globes are awards given to the best in film and television of that year and are chosen by the Hollywood Press Association. The nominations and winners of the Golden Globes often overlap the winners and nominees for the Oscars.

The Oscars are awarded to the best in film of that year and is considered by many to be the most prestigious film awards.

30 PHOTO ESSAY

Small groups of people lay out on the Nelson lawn for APRIL picnicking, lounging and playing games April 4. Other popular picnic spots include Loose Park and Memorial Hill.

15, 2021

Bouquets of flowers are laid around the picnic spread April 4. The fresh flowers and warm weather of spring can be enjoyed at a picnic.

Picnic perfection

Picnicking picks up when the weather gets warmer. The perfect picnic can look many different ways with various foods, activities and scenic locations.

Photos by Lauren Brackney | Social Media Team

A spread of sushi, cheese and crackers, sodas and baked goods are laid out for a picnic lunch March 28. Decorative plates can be used to add to the presentation of food.

A picnic basket is used to transport food and blankets to a sunny picnic spot on the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art front lawn March 28. Baskets, bags and coolers can be helpful picnic items to help carry items and keep food chilled.

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31

2020-2021

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