the power of SOCIAL MEDIA TWITTER CONNECTS PEOPLE Page 3D
sMART TEAM TO BOSTON MCAFEE GIVEN OPPORTUNITY TO REASEARCH WITH SCIENTISTS Page 5D
PINK TO BLUE STUDENT TRANSITIONS FROM GIRL TO BOY Page 7D
The Booster Redux Pittsburg High School 1978 E. 4th Street Pittsburg, KS 66762 Vol. 98, Issue 8 www.boosterredux.com
Friday, March 27, 2015
NEW LAW ‘PROTECTS’ STUDENTS FROM HARMFUL MATERIAL JOSHUA LEE @iAmTheJoshLee aiting for further action after passage through the Senate, SB56 has the potential to completely change the education system within the state of Kansas. Just one of many newer bills introduced in Kansas legislature, according to the Christian Science Monitor, this bill passed the Senate on Feb. 25 and is meant to protect students from harmful and offensive material. The bill itself defines “material” as “any book, magazine, newspaper, pamphlet, poster, print, picture, figure, image, description, motion picture film, record, recording tape or video tape,” and “harmful to minors” as the “quality of any description, exhibition, presentation or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement or sadomasochistic abuse.” English teacher Lyn Schultze believes that the bill will not go any further than passing the Senate because of its flaws and misguided ideas. “I will actually be really shocked if the Legislature passes this bill, and I think it is completely unnecessary,” Schultze said. “I think teachers are professionals, and teachers can decide what is relevant and what is pertinent to use in their classroom.” Because of what the bill defines as harmful or offensive, what teachers believe is necessary for class material may have to be censored or removed from the curriculum. “If [the bill] passes, and if they really put it into effect, I think that half the books in our library will
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disappear and so will maybe half of unnecessary and unreasonable. the curriculum,” Schultze said. ”Who decides what gets left out According to Schultze, the amount and what doesn’t? Who decides of literature remaining non-harmful what the definition of ‘offensive’ or according to the statutes in the bill ‘harmful material’ is?” Giffin said. will decrease because of the subjects “I’m not sure what the intent of the and topics that are included in what bill is, because society changes. What many would consider classic novels. I might find offensive, if it’s history “The Scarlet Letter deals or art, it’s still history and art. Do you with adultery and witchcraft, or now censor that? And who decides Huckleberry Finn, which deals with what should be censored? Because to racism, or Of Mice and Men, which me, that’s the old ‘burning of books deals with murder and attempted and taking them out of the library’ rape,” Schultze kind of thing.” said. “[The Like many bill] will have educators, senior a huge impact Priscilla Ruiz on thwarting believes that this teachers’ ability bill wouldn’t be to bring other helping students, materials into but rather that their classroom the bill would be to present to harming students their students.” instead. Not only “In some classes, does Schultze you absolutely claim that the need controversial bill would material,” Ruiz decrease said. “If you the amount keep these high - LYN SCHULTZE of teaching schoolers in a box, resources once they’re out available to teachers, she also believes there in college, they’re going to be that the bill is making a fruitless presented with all these ideas and attempt at protecting students. they’re not going to know what to do “I think anything [that students] with them.” can access on cable [television] Junior Sebastian Johns shares the or the internet is going to be way sentiments of Ruiz, claiming that the worse than anything that we have at bill is too far overreaching. school,” Schultze said. “There is so much room for gray In accordance to Schutlze’s belief areas and exploitation, and it could that high school students do not need be a problem at our school. Kids like to be sheltered by the bill, history attention, and if they want to say teacher Marjorie Giffin believes that that something is offensive and start the bill’s protection of students from a huge controversy over something harmful and offensive material is that somebody said in class, people
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I think teachers are professionals, and teachers can decide what is relevant and what is pertinent to use in their classroom.
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ENROLLMENT CLARIFICATION ATHLETES ‘STRONGLY RECOMMENDED’ TO ENROLL IN WEIGHTS BY MIRANDA MOORE
strength meet mengarelli and hobbs return as 5a state champs Page 8D
@mirandamoore24 As enrollment approaches, students are under a misconception that enrollment in a weights class for all athletes is mandator y. “A lot of people who are involved in spor ts are academically based where their schedules are already full. I’ve heard a lot of people who are like ‘It will be easier to not do that spor t than take the weights class,’” sophomore Kayla Clark said. “So there are a lot of people thinking about not doing that spor t because they don’t want to take the weights class.” However, many students do not realize that the weights class is not mandator y. “The biggest issue of this whole entire thing is ‘You’re telling me that if my kid doesn’t take this class, or can’t get into this class, that he or she cannot par ticipate,’ and that is absolutely not the case,” Principal Jon Bishop said. New athletic director Brannon Kidd has enacted a policy that highly recommends athletes to take a strength and conditioning class based off obser vations throughout the year. The new enrollment description states that the weights class is “highly recommended” for all students par ticipating in athletics. “The coaches have always told the kids ‘We recommend that you be in the weight room so you can help prevent inju-
ries and build a better athlete,’ but has never been highly recommended as far as from the athletic director on down,” guidance counselor Jessica Stegman said. Both Kidd and Bishop hope that the increased emphasis on weights training will not only build the strength of athletes, but help with injur y prevention as well. “Through my playing and coaching weight training, strength training, flexibility and agilities are all going to help with injur y prevention,” Kidd said. According to Kidd, the weight class will consist of both genders of athletes and focus on core lifts such as squat, bench and powerclean, to benefit a broad range of upper and lower body muscles. Flexibility training will also be incorporated as well as additional exercises may be added for specific spor ts. According to both Stegman and Kidd, the goal is to offer a weights class ever y hour, excluding lunch, to increase the oppor tunity for athletes to be able to enroll. A zero hour, star ting before the regular school day, is also being proposed. Grades and attendance will be tracked and credit will be earned. “If a kid cannot get the class to fit in their schedules because of the singletons they are taking, they may have to place it that zero hour if that’s the only
time they can get that training in,” Bishop said. For the past 14 years, head football coach Tom Nickelson has trained athletes before school during the spring. “Most of them are athletes who could not get into a weights class due to scheduling conflicts,” Nickelson said. Over the past two years there has been an increase in athletes attending and par ticipation has exceeded 20 athletes for the first time. Kidd recognizes that many kids cannot par ticipate in the program because of other activities throughout the school day. While there will be no formal consequences for not adhering to this recommendation, Kidd cites natural consequences of athletes not training their bodies as a concern. “The natural progression is this: those that are involved in a strength and conditioning program are going to become better,” Kidd said. “It’s just natural it is going to happen, so they need to understand it.” Junior Shelbi Heikes feels she cannot drop anything to join a weights class. Heikes is involved in numerous school activities including encore, Spanish, soccer and track, along with off-season traveling soccer and coaching. “I feel like we are almost getting to the point where we are valuing spor ts over educa-
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are just going to eat that up,” Johns said. Additionally, Johns believes that the bill would take away from education as a whole and that if the bill passes, future generations of students will not be able to receive proper education growing up. “They [would not] be exposed to as much material, and the more that we restrict our teachers and put them in handcuffs, the less knowledgeable our future generations are going to be,” Johns said. “We are going to be hurting our future generations… because teachers will not be able to give real-life applications and truly teach students the lessons that they need to teach them.” According to Assistant Principal Rhonda White, teachers normally have what is called the Affirmative Defense, which protects teachers and mitigates the effect of the consequences on the teachers if they are prosecuted. However, in addition to limiting the amount of available teaching material, the bill would also remove the affirmative defense rights from teachers. “[The bill] criminalizes the teachers’ lessons and teachings... the parts of the bill that criminalize a teacher’s teaching in the classroom is unnecessary,” White said. Principal Jon Bishop shares the arguments of other educators with the belief that the bill is unnecessary and an obstacle to the learning process. “I think we’re going down the wrong road,” Bishop said. “We need to be able to support our teachers, we need to be able to trust our teachers, and I think most of the public would agree with that.”
COSTA RICA Chaos Students’ trip interrupted by volcano CORAL VANBECELAERE @ @CVanbecelaere
The morning of March 12, eleven students accompanied by seven adults were en route to Costa Rica when their trip came to an abrupt halt. “We thought it was a joke at first, honest to tell you,” Spanish teacher Angie Pallares said “We were about 45 minutes out of Dallas in the air when the pilot comes over the announcement and says we have to turn back because the volcano [San Jose] erupted in Costa Rica. We thought he was literally joking.” When they returned to the airport, Pallares gave the students the option to stay and continue the trip or return home. Two students decided to return home while the rest stayed and continued to Costa Rica. After staying a night in Dallas, flying to Miami the group departed. Saturday morning, March 14, the group began their trip to Liberia, Costa Rica. Their first full day in Costa Rica was filled with activity. The first day of activities included, ziplining, horseback riding, kayaking and a trip to an all natural spa. “My favorite part of the trip was the spa. It was a five star spa and it looked beautiful. They served beverages, and there were hot springs heated by a nearby volcano,” sophomore Kagan Cole said. The hot springs were a popular attraction among the students and adults.
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