Shield volume 65, issuu 1

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shield McCallum High School / 5600 Sunshine / Austin, TX 78756 Volume 65 / Issue 1 / Oct. 27, 2017

DEATH OF A RIVALRY? IN NEWS AISD $1.05 billion bond would relocate LASA, potentially ending MAC-LBJ rivalry pages 6-7

IN OPINION Splitting LASA, LBJ would benefit both schools page 24

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inside

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the issue

The national debate over Confederate monuments hits home every time you drive across Jeff Davis Avenue.

Find out why seven cheerleaders have been taking a knee during the national anthem at varsity football games.

feature

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Austin Pets Alive! is not a disaster relief organization, but the 3,000 pets they saved from Harvey might beg to disagree.

Sophomore Jackson Sutton may not have met Ellen, but he fulfilled a lifelong dream by attending taping of her show.

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MacTheatre dials up the tap dance and the comedy by kicking off 2017-2018 season with ‘Catch Me if You Can.’ Senior designs clothing line, then organizes, stages benefit fashion show that raises more than $4,000 for charity.

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Volleyball playoffs v. Tivy at Wemberley @ 7 p.m.

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Senior makeup portrait day

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Late start

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Football vs. Lanier @ House Park @ 7:30 p.m.

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Girls basketball @ Hyde Park at 7 p.m.

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Football vs. Reagan at House Park @ 7:30 p.m.

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Homecoming dance in cafeteria @ 7:30-10:30 p.m.

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Thanksgiving break begins

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Girls basketball vs. Lago Vista @ Mac 8 p.m,

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October/November

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ABOVE: Junior Hannah Hufford, sophomore Mia Terminella and junior Sophia Salo perform “Jet Set” during Act One of the fall musical “Catch Me If You Can,” during the final full dress rehearsal on which had its opening night on Wednesday Sept. 27 prior to opening night the next night. Photo by Dave Winter.

RIGHT: After rushing for 116 yards and three touchdowns and passing for 103 yards and a score against Crockett at House Park on Oct. 20, senior quarterback Max Perez flashes eight fingers to represent the Knights’ 8-0 record heading into their bye week. Lanier and Reagan are all that stand in the way of the second 10-0 season in Mac history. Photo by Gregory James.

COVER PHOTO: The Knights raise their helmets in celebration after a defeating the LBJ Jaguars, 38-33 Sept. 29 at Nelson Field. Photo by Ian Clennan.

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Brothers Max and Miles Perkins talk about what it’s like to be brothers involved in the same game, but on different teams.

Senior Charliee Arnold talks about what her senior year season means to her and what her plans are for the future.

We would miss our sports rivalry with LBJ, but the honest truth is splitting LASA from LBJ would benefit both schools.

Standardized tests aren’t just unfair, they are an inaccurate way for colleges to form a first impression of applicants.

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Shield named Crown finalist The Shield staff learned on Oct. 10 that the Columbia Scholastic Press Association had named the publication a 2018 Crown Award finalist in the Hybrid News category.

Hybrid publications are selected as finalists based on CSPA’s evaluation of the publication’s print and online platforms.

This is the fifth time that the print newsmagazine has been nominated for the Crown Award and the third year in a row; this is the first time, however, that The Shield’s website has been named a finalist for the award.

The Shield was one of 51 high schools nationwide that was named a Crown finalist in the Hybrid category. Six of the other hybrid finalists hailed from Texas, among them The Eagle’s Eye at Akins High School in the Austin Independent School District. The Lone Star Dispatch at Bowie High School was a third AISD finalist in the print newspaper category.

Julie Robertson, a co-editor in chief in both 2016-2017 and 2017-2018, said the award is gratifying because of the time and effort she and her colleagues poured into the newspaper last year.

“Winning this award has felt super amazing for me because all of junior year I was putting so much work into all of our issues and staying at school so late that I would sometimes feel like our work wasn’t paying off,” Robertson said, “but seeing these huge national awards recognizing everyone’s efforts makes me feel like I’m part of something much bigger than me, something that is noticed on a much larger scale than I ever imagined.”

The Gold Crown award is one of the three top national awards that a scholastic news organization can win; the other two are the National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker Award and the Quill and Scroll Society’s George H. Gallup Award.

Last month, The Shield won the George H. Gallup Award, for both its print and online content.

The staff will find out in March whether it has won a Silver or Gold Crown. But Robertson knows that a lot of hard work must occur for this publication year before then so that the staff can continue to uphold its high standard.

“Winning this [honor] motivates me so much more to work incredibly hard on the issues this year and make them the best they can be,” Robertson said. “Hopefully [we] win an even higher award this coming year.”

—Sophie Ryland

Music majors put in work for TMEA region For musical fine arts majors, the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) region audition process is a familiar one.

Students perform in front of judges and are ranked against students from 22 other school districts.

For senior Pedro Najar, the audition process requires a lot of practice beforehand.

“I’ve had to cancel lessons two weeks in a row,” he said, “just so I can focus on this music. A lot of independent hand practicing to the point where you know exactly how each hand goes, so when you put it together it’s easier. A lot of hours a week on the piano.”

This will be Najar’s first time participating in the process as a piano major.

The guitar program’s competition took place last Friday on Oct. 20. Senior Henry Duaine has placed in the region ensemble three years in a row.

“We prepare pieces to performance level on our own time” he said. “We are given two excerpts and a brief solo to learn a month before auditions. It’s all outside investment.”

The guitar program had 14 members place in region ensemble this week.

TMEA region auditions are a familiar process for vocal majors. Senior Molly Leach branched out of her comfort zone, however, by auditioning as a tenor–a voice part that is generally

Luke Thiessen and Pedro Najar perform “Rhapsody in Blue” by composer George Gershwin at the Fall Dance Concert dress rehearsal. They are both piano majors, who will take part in the TMEA region audition process. Photo by David Winter. sung by males.

“I decided to audition for Tenor 1 this year because, as a senior, it is my last year to participate in TMEA choir,” Leach said. “I figured I would have nothing to lose. Beginning last year, girls were allowed to audition for parts traditionally filled by males, and I thought it would be cool to change it up a little. I was mostly curious to see how I would place as a female in a traditionally male section.”

Leach placed first chair among the

News in a

FLASH

AISD journalists get a behind the scenes look at 2017 ACL Festival On the Friday of the second weekend of Austin City Limits music festival, The Shield’s editors and adviser were given a tour of the press tent courtesy of C3, the producers of ACL, along with other journalism departments from across AISD. The tour included access to press booths run by major news outlets and an informational talk given by Austin journalists.

After the students and advisers were led into the press tent, four journalists who cover ACL every year told the students about the key ingredients involved in reporting on a festival this large.

One of these speakers, KGSR DJ and Texas Monthly writer Andy Langer, said he starts working before the festival even starts.

"Eighty percent of the work happens before you get to the festival," Langer said. Without preparation, he said covering the festival "would be a runaway train."

The students had a up-close look at the festival coverage from the tents of Austin news outlets, where entertainment and social media writers update websites with new information they receive from reporters out in the festival grounds.

Photographers also come to the tents to upload photos.

“The usefulness of these festivals ... is that you get snapshot of what people are listening to. You can go see stuff you would never see on your own.” Langer said.

—Zoë Hocker

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Senior Nickie Cohen plays her song “Counting Sheep” at the Excalibur coffeehouse on Oct. 20. Photo by Madison Olsen.

tenors, meaning she was ranked first among all those who auditioned in the region.

“I did not at all expect to get first chair,” she said. “I was quite shocked when I heard the news. I am just glad that a girl was able to place because it verifies that opening every section to every participant was the right thing to do.”

For many fine arts majors, region is an opportunity to showcase their musical talent and see how they compare with students from around Texas.

—Emma Baumgardner

Coffehouse combines Halloween theme with original poetry, music McCallum’s literary magazine, Excalibur, held its fall coffeehouse, a fundraiser to raise money for the publication, last Friday in the library during fourth period. The fundraiser was Halloween themed, and the library was decorated with fake candles, spider webs, cutouts of stars and moons hanging from the ceiling. The set list included poetry, original songs and even a double bass.

Junior Cole Duro Landry was on the Excalibur staff last year.

At Coffeehouse, Duro Landry was one of two students to perform pieces of writing. Landry admitted he was apprehensive at first about reading aloud on stage.

“I had to think about the concept of finding my center,” he said, “because you have to acknowledge who you are and what the core of what you’re saying is when you perform something live.”

Many of the Coffeehouse participants performed original music. Senior Nickie Cohen played her song “Counting Sheep.”

“I was inspired by relationships, particularly friendships, where I really cared about the person, but knew I could never trust them and that they would never treat me the way I deserved,” she said.

Coffeehouse didn’t only consist of solo acts. Seniors Matan Bos Orent and Jimmy Reyes, playing the guitar and drums respectively, performed their new song “Chastity,” which was inspired by Latin music.

“I had just learned this new Afro-Cuban rhythm, and I thought it was really cool, and I always show Matan whenever I learn new stuff. He was like, ‘OK, we should write something,’ and then we got together at lunch one day. We used that rhythm, and we wrote it in like 20 minutes.”

Senior Jackson Brooks, who sang and played the keyboard, performed at Coffeehouse for the first time two years ago, and has been a regular ever since.

“As an artist, my inspiration comes from focusing on the instrumental,” he said. “I’m an audio engineer in training. I like synthesizers a lot so I work a lot with [them]. It’s all about textures.”

Coffeehouse provides students an outlet to showcase their creativity and passion for the arts, a trait that speaks to the character of McCallum as a whole.

—Emma Baumgardner

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A monumental effort

Considering the current meaning of Confederate statues requires a long walk though the past EMMA BAUMGARDNER

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staff reporter

n the front lawn of the Texas Capitol, on the base of a statue erected in 1903, there is a plaque that reads, “Died for State Rights guaranteed under the Constitution.” This statue, built to honor those who died fighting for the Confederacy, remains relatively unknown to the public. Even though the debate over the removal of Confederate monuments has become a polarized issue in the South and in America as a whole, it is easy to forget how close to home this controversy truly is.

To understand how these Confederate statues remain so prevalent in Texas, it is necessary to understand how the idea of Southern pride connects to our Confederate past. For many, Southern pride isn’t representative of fondness for life before the Civil War but rather the connections people have to each other and to their family.

Senior J.B. Faught, a third generation student at McCallum, is one of these people.

“When I think of Southern heritage,” Faught said, “I think of roots, like family. Heritage to me does not mean carrying down certain political views, or religion even. That’s what heritage is.”

The history of that heritage has different meanings to different people. McCallum librarian Jane Farmer grew up in a small town in East Texas, where Southern pride was a staple of everyday life.

“I grew up with that,” she said, “so I think it means different things to different people. For a lot of people, the South represented a chivalrous way of life. I think people picked out the good things about that. There was a pretty high moral code—people were friendly and kind to each other, that’s one side of it. And the other side is that the whole economy of the pre-Civil War South was based on treating people like things. I’m glad that the conversation is going on. I think it should have happened a lot sooner.”

It is also important to consider the historical origin of Southern pride. According to U.S. history teacher Joseph Carcione, the idea of Southern pride dates as

The Confederate Soldiers Monument was erected in 1903. The monument lists all Confederate battles along its base, along with a plaque explaining that the monument was created to honor dead Confederate soldiers. On the top tier of the monument sits Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederate States, surrounded by four more statues of soldiers.

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far back as the American Revolution.

“It goes back to Madison and Jefferson, that they were the aristocracy of England, and that they were holding on to this more civilized gentile culture,” Carcione said.

In the eyes of junior Joilyn Green, celebrating Southern heritage means recognizing where these ideals of the South come from.

“There’s two different southern heritages,” Green said. “There’s a white southern heritage, and there’s a black southern heritage. I think the white southern heritage takes all the good things from the past and condenses them into something that’s easy to swallow. I think black southern heritage is more of like, yes, terrible things happened to our family, but we’re still prospering despite everything. It’s fantastic to take pride in your culture, but don’t take pride without forgetting the history or forgetting how we got here and how this country was developed.”

Interpretation of the past is an important factor in the decision to take down Confederate monuments. To understand the reasoning behind the removal of these monuments, it’s necessary to understand when and why they were built in the first place. According to Carcione, a majority of the monuments were commissioned in two periods of American history.

“Most of them were first erected when the older Confederate veterans were dying in the late 1800s, early 1900s,” Carcione said. “They were putting these statues up to honor their service in the Confederate army. They also went up in the 1940s and ’50s to intimidate African-Americans for pushing for civil rights. Some of it was done genuinely to honor people who were dying; some of them were done during the civil rights movement for intimidation.”

Even during the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, there was reluctance by some in the South to erect these monuments.

“Robert E. Lee had discussed not putting up monuments,” Carcione said.

“He said the country should move past the war, and he really saw it as something divisive.

So Lee, ironically, didn’t want the monuments to go up.”

These statues have always been controversial, now more than ever. In 2016, the AISD school b o a r d voted to rename

In the wake of the Charlottesville, Va. white supremacist rallies, the Austin City Council agreed to initiate the process of renaming roads Robert E. Lee Road (in South Austin) and Jeff Davis Avenue (in North Austin in the McCallum district). The street signs in both areas have been vandalized. Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition to change the name of Robert E. Lee Road.

Photo by Dave Winter.

Robert E. Lee Elementary to Russell Lee Elementary. The decision was in direct response to the 2015 deadly shooting of nine AfricanAmericans in a church in Charleston, S.C., which spurred Americans to analyze the reasons behind dedicating government property to prominent members of the Confederacy. To Faught, the issue is subjective.

“I think it’s kind of unnecessary,” Faught said. “Personally I don’t see a problem with the elementary school being named that. I know it’s controversial, but Robert E. Lee was kind of a mastermind war general; he was a smart guy. But again, he could be seen as offensive or racist, so I understand where people are coming from, but to me the name change is not necessary.”

For others, like Green, the issue is much more relevant in the fight toward equality.

“I think it’s a good idea for them to rename the elementary school,” Green said. “I feel like it really is common sense.”

University of Texas president Gregory Fenves had four statues removed from the South Mall of the UT campus this August after the Charlottesville, Va., riots. During the riots, a man plowed his car into a crowd of counter protesters responding to the demonstrations of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. These statues, honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate Postmaster John H. Reagan, and Texas governor James Stephen Hogg, were relocated under the cover of darkness to ensure that no protesters would gather to contest their removal. J.B. Bird, the director of

media relations at UT, explained the reasoning behind the decision.

“In August, following the horrific displays of hatred in Charlottesville,” Bird said, “the president revisited the idea of relocating the remaining statues. After receiving input from many members of the UT community, he decided that was the right thing to do at a time when white supremacists across the country are using Confederate statues as symbols of hatred and bigotry.”

According to Bird, the decision to take down the statues largely had to do with input from UT students.

“When people read about the question of removing Confederate monuments in Baltimore, Charleston, Austin or other cities,” Bird said, “they often think about the national context, national political issues and sometimes their own philosophical ideas as to whether the monuments should be removed. But for every statue, there are also highly local issues related to the people who live, work and see the statue on a daily basis. The decisions that community members reach are of course influenced by national discussions, but they are in the end very local decisions, rooted in the particular history of individual statues and their relationships to the people around them.”

Because this is a local issue, it is personal to Southerners who have grown up around these monuments. Even with their removal, it is important to recognize this moment as an opportunity to reexamine how Southerners and America as a whole will interpret and remember the region’s Confederate past.

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Joining a national conversation

Cheerleaders kneel during ‘Star Spangled Banner’ in order ‘to take a stand in peaceful way’ SOPHIE RYLAND staff reporter

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efore arguably the biggest football game of the year against rival LBJ High School on Sept. 29, “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play and seven of the cheerleaders all dropped to one knee. While the first half was still underway, there was an article published on statesman.com that triggered a fierce debate in its comment section.

The cheer squad was following the lead of the #TakeAKnee movement, in which professional football players have been kneeling during the national anthem. It began over a year ago, when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling to call attention to police violence against African-American citizens.

The protest recently gained new traction after President Donald J. Trump decried Kaepernick at a political rally in Alabama, saying, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’?”

After the initial protests over Trump’s comments garnered national attention, cheerleaders McKenna Carpenter and Daejha Taylor decided to do a protest of their own.

“Taking a knee is about police brutality and racial inequality,” said Taylor, who is a senior as well as a captain of the cheer squad.

“It’s not about the anthem. Young black men are being killed every day, and no one is doing anything about it, and by kneeling I’m bringing attention to the problem peacefully. It’s not to disrespect the country, it’s to bring awareness to the problems the country has and not ignore them.”

Once Carpenter and Taylor initially had the idea for their squad to kneel, they went to their cheerleading coach, Chastity Colbert, to request her permission.

“When they asked me, at first I had to think about it, and I talked to Mr. Garrison about the legalities and made sure it was OK,” Colbert said. “And then we sat down as a team and we talked about why they were protesting and what they were feeling, and they went around and they talked about why they wanted to kneel. They had very good responses and were very articulate about their cause, and so I just felt like, if this is something they wanted to do, then I was going to support them, because they are good students. So I left it up to them to decide and also made sure I got permission from their parents to make sure it was OK with them if [the cheerleaders] were going to kneel as well.”

Cheerleader Angelina Coleman, a sophomore, says that she was initially anxious about kneeling, as her brother is in the Navy, but he gave his blessing once she asked him before the game.

“I researched how it started with Colin Kaepernick just sitting, and then one of his player friends, who’s a veteran, told him he felt it would be more respectful to kneel, the same way guys kneeled when their fallen brothers were taken out in their caskets with flags covering it,” Coleman said. “It’s like a sign of respect for your fallen brothers. And then it turned into so much more for me; it turned into not only taking a knee to protest police brutality, but taking a knee for my fallen brothers, fallen people in America who have been disproportionately marginalized and oppressed. Every time a case of police brutality explodes like Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, all these names come to my mind every time I’m kneeling, I’m kneeling for them. I’m kneeling for all the injustices I feel in are in America, and I’m taking a knee for that because I’m putting myself half-mast the way they put a flag half mast when there’s a national tragedy because I feel there’s an unspoken national tragedy that’s just so common that it’s not talked about anymore.”

According to Carpenter, a little more than half of the cheerleaders kneeled that first time. They have knelt at every game since, most recently before Friday’s game against Crockett at House Park.

“Our intention was of course not to disrespect the national anthem or any war veterans at all; it was to bring awareness,” Carpenter said.

“I am not a minority, but I feel like as an ally I want to do all that I can

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McCallum cheerleaders kneel during the national anthem before the Sept. 29 game against LBJ. It was the first time they knelt in protest. Photo by Madison Olsen. to bring awareness to the Trump administration and the way he has been talking about minorities and women and all subjugated groups in general. It was our way to take a stand in a peaceful way.”

Senior Sai Hunsucker-Pollock says she personally chose to kneel because she currently feels unsafe as a minority in her country. “[I knelt] because of social injustice,” Hunsucker-Pollock said. “I feel like the American flag, with everything America stands for at this point, is not in support of my skin color. With everything going on politically, I feel like kneeling is a respectful way to protest.”

Not all of the cheerleaders took a knee. Senior Lilly Ponce didn’t participate because she has military veterans in her family who, when she asked their permission, told her that it was disrespectful to them. “[The kneeling is considered disrespectful] because the national anthem is for the people who fought and risked their lives and died defending the United States, and we have always been taught to stand for the anthem as a way to show our respect,” Ponce said.

“Kneeling kind of does the opposite.”

Taylor maintains the issue has not divided the squad and they are all making an effort to understand and respect each other’s opinions.

“We don’t judge each other for our opinions; to each their own,” she said. “We don’t let it divide us because, at the end of the day, we are a team.”

The cheerleaders who chose to kneel went to Principal Mike Garrison for his blessing before they began their protest. While some school administrators have opted to punish athletes who kneel, Garrison chose not to ban the protest but rather to support their First Amendment rights.

“People have rights to freedom of speech, so it didn’t bother me that they were kneeling,” Garrison said. “There have been some messages, emails and phone calls to me from some in support of the fact that the students kneeled and then some opposed. What I tell the people who call me, whether they support it or they do not support it, is that there is no law against it, there is no district policy or school policy against it, and students have the right of freedom of speech as long as it is not disruptive.”

Colbert has been concerned about online scrutiny as a result of the media’s coverage of the cheerleaders and their protest, and these worries were not unjustified. The Austin-American Statesman published an article about the first demonstration. Within days there were more than 1,000 comments, many of them negative.

One opinionated social-media commenter reached out to The Shield via the MacJournalism Facebook page to voice her complaints (she wishes to remain anonymous). She has alumni and current McCallum students in her family and is upset with those who protested at the game.

“I think these children are kneeling against cops, but if something were to happen, who would they call?” the commenter wrote in a Facebook message. “Not all cops are bad, just as not all people are bad. I know the kneeling is in protest of blacks being shot by cops.

What about blacks being shot by blacks in gangs? The children have no clue as to what they are protesting; it goes much deeper than race or police. It’s a division of the United States of America.”

Many who disagreed with the cheerleaders’ actions proclaimed them to be uninformed, but those on the squad who knelt maintain that did not make the decision lightly or out of ignorance and that they don’t resent those who disagree with them.

“Don’t kneel because you see everybody else doing it because that takes away from it,” Coleman said. “You don’t know what’s happening, and don’t think that because you’re standing with your hand over your heart that you’re against us, or [that] we don’t like you because that’s not how it is.”

Like many of the cheerleaders, Hunsucker-Pollock asserts that she is unshaken in the convictions that led her to kneel in the first place, and no amount of backlash will keep her from protesting for a cause in which she believes.

“I know why I am kneeling, and I’m proud of myself for doing it,” she said. “So really, anyone else’s comments are unnecessary.”

Additional reporting by Emma Baumgardner, Anna Compton, Julie Robertson, Gregory James and Abigail Salazar. This is an abridged version of this story. To read the full version, please visit The Shield Online at www.macshieldonline.com.

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$1 billion bond: extensive or expensive?

AISD proposes 40 new improvement projects designed to repair, upgrade aging facilities SOPHIE RYLAND staff reporter

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t McCallum, one can hear frequent complaints of rats, broken ACs and leaking ceilings. As far as AISD schools go, however, McCallum is far from being the most run-down school in the district. The average facility is about 46 years old, with the oldest building nearing a century, and nearly 40 percent of campus buildings have been declared to be in poor or very poor condition.

To address the rapidly aging buildings, the AISD Board of Trustees approved a proposal on June 26 for 40 bond projects, totaling $1.05 billion in order to renovate and modernize buildings, including 16 completely new campus buildings, to meet 21st-century standards for education.

“The way students learn now, the way they function, it’s different than the way they did 30 years ago, and many of our facilities were built more like 50 years ago,” lead engineer and Bowie graduate Matthias Segura said. “We’re trying to get away from Band-Aids; in the past, it was spending money on things that were issues right then and there. We want to look at an approach that is more holistic. Let’s figure out where the best values for the district are, and let’s improve the schools significantly through modernization so it’ll perform better for the students, and it’s less expensive to operate and maintain.”

RENOVATING AND MODERNIZING Proposals under the bond include four replacement elementary schools, a new middle school in the Mueller neighborhood and a new campus for the Rosedale School, which serves students with special needs throughout the district.

“We’re now taking a completely different strategy,” Superintendent Paul Cruz said in a press conference with AISD student journalists on Sept. 13. “That’s why there are 16 schools that will be brand new or fully modernized, serving students in a facility that really connects with academic programming, or [with] special programs like Rosedale or the Fine Arts Academy. Sure, we could just fix a few mirrors in the Fine Arts Academy, and that’s affordable. But to serve the Fine Arts Academy, let’s just build facilities that are conducive to the learning and expectations.”

The largest portion of the billion dollars is made up of $187 million for critical facility deficiencies, aimed at reducing AISD’s $3 billion deficit in deferred maintenance costs.

“In the past, our strategy has been a lot of patchwork,” Cruz said. “We change the lighting, we change the windows, we do a little painting, restripe parking lots, stuff like that. This is not it. I think that strategy served us at the time, but with the cost of patching it up for so many years compared to the cost of just saying, ‘Level the school and build it brand new,’ [the latter] is actually more cost effective …. and completely fix[es] the issue.”

NO TAX-RATE INCREASE FOR TAXPAYERS The district hopes citizens will vote for the proposition because it does not come with a tax-rate increase, a feat made possible by relying instead on increased revenue from property taxes because of rising home values, issuing bonds strategically over the 30-year period, leftover funds from previous bonds and money from some upcoming land sales.

Unlike yearly budgets, the money AISD receives from the bond is not subject to Texas’s controversial recapture systems, in which a portion of taxes collected in property-wealthy areas (like Austin) are sent to other, less wealthy school districts in the state. In 2018, Austin is expected to pay a total of $534 million in recapture, more than any other school system in Texas. The trustees say that if they

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A concerned taxpayer discusses the finacial details of the plan with AISD Technology Officer Kevin Schwartz at a community engagement meeting on Sept. 26 hosted by the district and held at McCallum. The bond, which currently contains around a billion dollars worth of projects to repair critical deficiencies in and modernize the district’s aging facilities, includes eight million dollars for McCallum (the most significant update is a new dance studio). Photo by Kelsey Tasch. had not had to give up so much money under recapture, then they wouldn’t have needed to issue the bond.

Trustee Julie Cowan says that since AISD is the sixth-largest district in the state and the buildings are far too old to serve their students effectively, a billion-dollar amount is justified.

“We can fund this,” Cowan said. “It won’t add to your tax rate. I would’ve liked to have done more for our schools, … but right now, to try to do just a little more would be a little bit too ambitious because you have to think about what our construction industry [is] like, and you have to think about the time frame; we’ll be displacing kids a bit, moving them out so that we can fix things.”

The district claims that the bond will eliminate emergency structural deficiencies, improve the quality of academic programs (including expanding the Early College High School to schools like LBJ High School) and reduce both over- and underenrollment.

Cruz says that AISD is committed to offering a diverse array of experiences in its schools, saying that they would include revitalized academics, fine arts, foreign languages and athletics in the expanded programming.

“What I hear most from parents—and I am a parent, I have two sons in Austin schools—is, ‘What does this mean for the learning experience of my child?’” Cruz said. “We want all kids to make sure that their program of study is rigorous. We want to make sure all students have a full range of experiences in schools.”

A TWO-YEAR-LONG PLANNING PROCESS

The proposal is based on the recommendations given in the Facility Master Plan, or FMP, an outline of the biggest issues in the district’s facilities and guidelines for how to best correct them.

The district trustees approved the FMP on April 4 after seven hours of debate, recommending that $4.6 billion be spent on the

proposals over the course of nearly three decades.

The FMP process started about two years ago with the assessment of every facility in the district; each one was given a Facilities Conditions Assessment score, which measured the tangible aspects of the buildings (such as roofing, electrical and plumbing), and an Education Sustainability Assessment score, which considered how well a facility creates an environment that is conducive to learning.

“We know the Austin community expects the school district to be transparent and responsive,” said Christian Clarke Cásarez, the assistant to AISD Chief Financial Officer Nicole Conley-Johnson.

“What people should know is that this is a very careful twoyear process involving 38 Facilities and Bond Planning Advisory Committee meetings, more than 5,000 individual pieces of input to date and 500 engagement opportunities. The priorities identified in the bond are designed to be prudent, responsible investments to enable 21st-century learning for a new generation of students.”

After the assessment process, the FMP was finalized to address previously reviewed needs, outlining the primary changes that need to be made to AISD’s facilities over the next couple of decades in order to ensure that they are both safe and modernized for their students.

“It’s not light renovation,” Segura said. These numbers, in some cases it’s a complete re-do in a lot of ways. It’s very intense, invasive reconstruction that’s going to occur, where it won’t look or feel anything like it does now.”

For the 2017 bond, they chose the issues outlined in the FMP that required the most immediate attention; as they call it, a “worst-first” approach. Cowan praised the planning in both the FMP and the 2017 bond, advocating for the benefits that the bond will bring to the district.

“Our leadership and board truly do have a vision to reinvent

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urban education, and providing better academic spaces would help us reach our goals,” Cowan said. “They created a facility master plan unlike any AISD has had before, and I’d probably go so far as to say no other district in Central Texas has anything as comprehensive.”

PROPOSED UPGRADES FOR MCCALLUM AND FIXING FLUCTUATING ENROLLMENT Under the plan, McCallum would receive around $8.5 million dollars, primarily focusing on a new dance studio, increasing capacity and improving technological systems in the classrooms.

“We have been lobbying for a new dance facility since the last bond, which didn’t pass,” McCallum dance director Natalie Uehara said. “We will have our own space, and we won’t have to borrow space from athletics or theatre. Also, it’s a safety issue because we need a special floor, which we don’t have in the field house. We do have it [in the black box], only because we built it ourselves, so we need a special strength floor to protect the dancers’ bodies. The program here is so strong, so if we did have our own facility it would just make it even stronger.”

Within their plan, the district has addressed overcrowding and underenrollment by increasing the capacity of existing schools, building new schools and forming a Target Utilization Plan to combat declining enrollment at underenrolled schools. Cowan said that she believes that the upgraded facilities will attract more students, helping to reverse the trend of decreasing enrollment.

THE LASA/LBJ SPLIT Another major facet of the plan is to move the LASA magnet program out of LBJ High School into what is now Eastside Memorial High School; Eastside would also be moved to the former location of the Alternative Learning Center, which was originally Old Anderson, the district’s African-American high school in the “separate but equal” days of Plessy v. Ferguson.

Segura praised the efficiency of this particular solution.

“We have developed a solution that doesn’t require buying new land,” Seguras said. “When you look at things that check multiple boxes, this is one of those really unique solutions.”

Dr. Cruz said that multiple factors formed the basis for the decision to relocate LASA from LBJ’s top floor: the desire for both schools to expand their enrollment, the need for more physical space for the programs at LBJ and the preexisting need for both Eastside Memorial and the Alternate Learning Center to relocate to smaller spaces to accommodate their smaller enrollment numbers.

Critics of the plan argue that the LASA move is part of an ongoing trend of neglecting East Austin schools with a substantial minority population and that the district should be more sensitive to preserving the history of the original Anderson location. Concerned East Austin citizens recently formed the Save East Austin Schools PAC in order to protest the bond. On Sept. 25, around two dozen protesters showed up to AISD’s headquarters to protest the bond proposal. The protesters chanted, “Vote No!” and, “Save East Austin Schools!” The SEAS PAC did not respond to a request for comment.

“This bond disproportionately affects schools in East Austin and continues to racially segregate our children,” said Jane Ibarra, who has grandchildren in AISD schools. “Taxes would increase while not helping our Eastside students. The bond is a quick answer for AISD, but at a cost to our minority students, and they’re our future. And we as concerned parents, grandparents have to see to their best interest, not AISD.” Cásarez maintains that they are addressing the community’s needs in the process of moving LASA, saying that they will seek out feedback every step of the process until ground is broken in 2020-21. They also explained the district’s plan to celebrate the heritage of the Old Anderson campus, including ensuring historical preservation of the facility and creating a museum and gallery area on the new Eastside Memorial campus to honor the original Anderson community.

“AISD takes very seriously its vision and mission to prepare all students for college, career and life,” Cásarez said. “The facility master plan and bonds are only some tools out of many in an extensive toolbox that Austin ISD will use to confront the challenges of undoing systemic inequities and inequalities

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throughout our the district. Austin ISD is diligently working on reassessing its magnet program admissions process and reevaluating enrollment criteria in efforts to mitigate barriers to entry and increase diversity. Austin ISD leadership is very mindful to collaborate with other entities that are invested in making it less burdensome for families to live affordably in Austin.”

Currently LBJ is host to the early college program (along with other schools like Travis, Reagan and a few others), where high school students can earn college credit. The district also has plans for a medical science magnet program complete with a clinic, where students can train for the health profession alongside Seton Healthcare professionals. Those who have graduated from the program will graduate with, in addition to their diploma, an associate’s degree in health sciences, workplace experience and a guaranteed interview with the Seton family of hospitals.

“Of course we want you to graduate high school, maybe with a little bit of college credit, but we also want you to go on to have wonderful careers and wonderful lives and wonderful experiences,” Cruz said. “I’m always really proud of teachers.

I started off in education as a teacher; it’s always great to see students so engaged in the learning process.”

WHAT HAPPENS IF IT DOESN’T PASS? If the bond does not pass, district officials said they will need to close schools that are chronically underenrolled or lowperforming in regards to its facilities. The district would only be able to pay for urgent operating costs with emergency funds, which would quickly be depleted.

A prime example of the dire circumstances of the district’s aging facilities is T.A. Brown; the elementary school was unexpectedly shut down almost a year ago when the building’s foundation was found to have critical deficiencies. Under the bond, the students would have a completely renovated school, but if the proposal doesn’t pass, then students will have to be transferred to other existing schools.

“The school district, under the laws, have very limited ways of raising dollars. … If voters don’t approve the bond, then we’ll have to address emergency repairs because our infrastructure is still old,” Conley-Johnson said. “When you have 130 schools and about another 15 sites, we’ll be forced to deal with critical emergency repairs out of operating dollars, which means it’s going to put programming at risk, our support, all the salaries and supporting our teachers. That’s pretty much all we’re going to be able to do if we don’t get the bond authorized to fix our schools, build new ones and address the overcrowding.”

In the last bond election, which took place in 2013, voters passed $500 million to address critical renovation issues like HVAC systems, plumbing and leaking. In the same election, however, voters also rejected a $234 million proposal for new school construction and campus expansions to relieve overcrowding.

To reach out to voters, AISD has organized a series of community engagement meetings in order to educate the public and receive feedback. On Sept. 26, at one such meeting in the McCallum cafeteria, AISD parent Stacey Roeder said that she left the meeting having learned more about the proposal and had decided that she would vote in favor of it.

“It’s unfortunate that we haven’t been able to maintain our schools better all these years, but it’s important to me that we do what we can now so that we are not in an even more dire situation five, 10 years from now,” said Roeder, who has children at Lamar and Gullett. “These kids deserve facilities where basic needs are met, from plumbing problems to air conditioning. ... We have Pre-K students who are using bathrooms with severe over-flooding; that’s just not acceptable. If we don’t do something about these circumstances, they’re just going to get more and more frequent. It’ll just cost even more to fix later.

I think they’re doing what they can in the immediate future.

Before you form a negative opinion, go find out the facts, and then you can judge.”

Early voting began on Oct. 23, while election day is on Nov. 7.

Cowan urges both students of voting age and parents to go vote in support of the bond.

“It’s an exciting time for AISD,” she said. “Now is the time to modernize, open our minds to the possibilities, and promote a purposeful bond initiative.”

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Austin Pets Alive! mobilizes to save pets dislocated by Harvey ANNA COMPTON assistant editor

Hurricane Harvey left thousands of Texans without power for days, destroyed homes and took 77 lives. In the wake of the storm’s destructive power, many pet owners had no other choice but to surrender their pets to shelters because there was no longer a place for them to live. On one of Lindsey Picard’s first days working at the Austin Pets Alive! temporary shelter in Austin, a huge transport of more than 200 animals arrived at once.

“I can’t shake the image of these hundreds of animals, at first confused and scared, being so lovingly cared for—then tail-wagging and purring as soon as our volunteers were by their side,” said Picard, a marketing manager.

APA rescued more than 3,000 pets during Harvey’s reign over Texas. Although it is not a disaster relief organization, APA went beyond its normal mission by opening two temporary shelters in Austin and Katy, just west of Houston. Normally a marketing expert, Picard is one of the many APA employers who performed jobs they don’t normally do in order to serve homeless pets in need.

“I worked at our normal shelter locations in Austin, at our temporary Austin location,” Picard said, “and I even spent some hot days in the Katy Mills Mall parking lot.”

Picard has been working at APA for more than six months now but states that she’s “been a fan and supporter for many years,” and that both of her dogs are APA alums. Picard’s job during this relief effort has been to communicate with her community about how people can get involved and provide needed help. Picard said that APA has more animals in its care than ever before, and that the number is still growing.

“Animals were pulled from flood waters and needed immediate medical attention,” Picard said. “It’s never easy to see an animal who is scared and alone, especially not in situations like this, but knowing that they are safe and sound

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Freshman Lily Morales hugs her puppy Luna, a Harvey survivor, after her club soccer game at Hill County Middle School on Sept. 30. Photo by Lindsey Plotkin.

The story of Lily & Luna

once they arrive at APA makes all of the tough moments worth it.”

APA has not been working alone on this effort. Local volunteers and volunteers who have traveled to Texas from all across the country have provided a surplus of support.

Picard said that volunteers and staff worked around the clock—even living in parking lots and temporary shelters—to ensure all animals were safe and cared for.

“It truly gives me goosebumps, just thinking about all the amazing humans who are the reason all these amazing animals are safe and sound,” Picard said. “Really, the outpouring of support from our volunteers, staff and community was, and still is, absolutely awe-inspiring.”

APA workers did what they had to do to help save as many animal lives as possible—from bringing dogs to safety before the storm even hit, to staying on the ground in Houston for months after the storm passed.

“The amount of animals we have in foster homes right now has tripled,” Picard said. “We still have a team on the ground in Houston to continue relief efforts at our temporary shelter location. At this point it’s hard to put a number on how many animals are still needing help, but we are doing our best to help as many of them as possible.”

Picard said that Austin Pets Alive! still needs people to adopt, to foster and to donate. Their work is far from over, and any help given will be greatly appreciated.

Lily Morales and her family adopted a puppy through Austin Pets Alive! during the chaos of the hurricane turned tropical storm. Luna, a German shepard and lab mix, was one of the 3,000 pets that APA rescued from Harvey.

The Morales family was already planning on adopting a dog, but one of their family friends was fostering puppies through APA, so they decided to adopt a puppy through them. Morales, a freshman, said they did not receive much information about Luna because APA rescued so many pets that they did not have information about all of them. “[Luna] was from somewhere on the coast,” Morales said. “Usually you get more information on the dog you adopt, but they had so many dogs that they weren’t that particular about it.”

At the temporary Austin Pets Alive! shelter at 7711 Burnet Road, employees worked to ensure that rescued cats and dogs were adopted and placed into loving homes.

Photos by Amanda Stronza, Mike Ryan and Diana M Lott.

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Storm hits hard, then Texans hit back For many students and faculty, Hurricane Harvey hit close to home

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s Hurricane Harvey hurtled closer to the Texas coast, Texans all over the state cast their eyes onto screens. Switching to The Weather Channel, scrolling through Twitter, and tuning onto countless broadcasts, e v e r y o n e desperate to be informed on the pro g ress of the

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havoc. Still, there are some things that simply cannot be felt, described, or captured through the eyes of a camera.

While Austinites just had to don raincoats and umbrellas, and McCallum students had a two-hour delayed start on Monday, Aug. 28, the Houston area continued to be bombarded by Harvey’s wrath.

Many McCallum students and faculty felt Hurricane Harvey’s force secondhand, having family either deployed, evacuated or rescued from the midst of the storm.

Sophomore Annika Katz’s cousins in the Houston area were rescued from atop their neighbors house—stranded as flood levels rose above eight feet.

“It was a very big shock knowing water could get eight feet higher,” Katz said. “Houses and highways have water all the way past up here,” She raised her arm above her head, showing the height that the water rose to. “It was apocalyptic.”

Katz’s cousins were saved just in time. They were spotted by a rescue team on a boat that was searching through the neighborhood that then brought them to safety.

Katz was not the only McCallum Knight who had family directly in Harvey’s path. School librarian, Jane Farmer, had elderly relatives living in Corpus Christi, who were evacuated early in the morning Aug. 25. The family’s original plan was to have their nephew stay with them to wait out the storm. As news spread about the severity of Harvey, however, the plan changed at the last second. The three packed what they could fit into their car and drove to Austin. “[I] felt

thankful that I had a way to get my loved ones here,” Farmer said. “Many people didn’t. They could Sanabria not have gotten in the car and driven; they are not that physically able, but was at the coast we had someone that could do that.” to help with rescuing and helping through the disastrous Katz’s family was also very fortunate people that their cousins were safely rescued. flooding, Ena Nolan’s father was “Now knowing they’re safe I feel a there working on infrastructure.

“He called us and said he was lot better,” Katz said, “and insurance is going to cover their house.” being deployed down to Katy, Not only were those who had family in Texas,” Nolan said. “One of the [nuclear] plants exploded or the area affected, but some who have family was on the verge of exploding.” members in the National Guard, or who It’s hard, with day-to-day are in the National Guard themselves, rush, and the hectic beginning were deployed to Houston and the coast. of the school year, to Sophomore Ena Nolan’s recognize the lifefather is in the military, altering events that specifically the National transpire. With Hurricane Guard. He has been deployed Harvey just next door, three times since Nolan was however, the wake of born, to Afghanistan, Iraq, the disaster hit close and now to Katy, Texas. to home. For many in “There’s been natural disasters before, but there’s never the McCallum community, been one bad enough that [he has] it could not be ignored. actually had to go out and be deployed,” —Kelsey Tasch Nolan said. “Usually, he stays in the office and figures out the logistics.”

Social studies teacher Michael Top left: A Houston resident Sanabria is also in the National Guard. looks out of his home onto his Fellow social studies teacher, Katie front yard. Water levels came all the Carrasco, received the news of way up through the first floor of the Sanabria’s deployment when she home. Moments later, the Coast Guard got a call from him. Sanabria flew over the neighborhood to find people called her from his car, already stranded on roofs or in completely flooded driving down to San Antonio, homes. Top right: Houston in a fog, with where he was to helicopter Interstate 45 towering over completely down to the coast. Three days flooded roads. Bottom left: Due to later, the two talked again. the rising waters in the Houston area, “They were having trouble Animals normally residing in swamps even getting to Houston,” Carrasco said.

“They found their way to higher ground, sometimes into urban neighborhoods. weren’t able to find places to land.”

Photos courtesy of Maddie Doran.

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Building to a Magnuson opus Lifetime film buff, cinematic arts major reflects on directing, plans for the future in the industry JOSEPH CARDENAS staff reporter

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illiam Magnuson, a proud member of the class of 2018 and a veteran Cinematic Arts Major, has used the resources from the AV department over the past four years to create many short films, each an improvement on the one before it. He’s also quite the film buff: he could talk until the end of time about movies he loves, and about movies he hates.

Magnuson’s film origin story comes from humble beginnings.

“My parents are divorced,” Magnuson said, “and whenever I was with my dad, me and him would always watch movies.

Not like How to Train Your Dragon or garbage like that, but a highly regarded film like The Goonies, like a classic movie, and we just really bonded over that, and I fell in love with movies themselves.”

Magnuson hadn’t started filming back then, but it was almost destiny that he would eventually.

“My brother was in the film program at McCallum while I was in middle school, so naturally I saw what he was doing and I wanted to do it too,” Magnuson said.

And the rest, they say, is film history. No one can become a director overnight, so Magnuson is always practicing and trying to get better at his craft. “[Directing] is a lot of guess and check,” Magnuson said.

“One thing I do all the time is after we finish filming a movie, I sit down by myself, and I just watch the movie, and while I’m watching I take notes about everything I did wrong. I’m brutally honest with myself, but it’s good because I can see what I need to improve on and the next film I shoot is always just a little bit better than the last one.”

Magnuson tries his best to improve his films, but his many years of experience as a director has taught him there are occasional factors that lie beyond his control. “[You can’t pay] actors in high school, I mean unless you’re rich, you can’t pay people to act in your film,” Magnuson said.

“Sometimes they’re good, like it’s hit or miss.”

Overcoming these issues isn’t easy, but working with interesting subjects can help, especially when the subject at hand is comedy.

“It’s more fun to make a comedy, something like a good oldfashioned comedy with slapstick and smart humor,” Magnuson said. “I’m not into fart jokes or whatever, just like good old comedies like The Nice Guys; that’s a perfect example of what my kind of movie would be like. I would consider myself successful person in life if that could be my movie.”

While Magnuson is a fan of a worthy comedy, he also appreciates an adventure film that offers a little suspense. “[I like] thrillers,” Magnuson said. “And when I say thrillers, I don’t mean like, there’s a guy in the building with a gun and [the premise is], ‘Oh where’s the guy with the gun?’ It’s like movies that are important, like the movie Sicario.”

Magnuson really loves movies, but for each thing he loves about them, there are two more things that he hates. “[I hate] any genre where they sacrifice the story or the character or the developments for the cheap thrills in a comedy like a fart joke,” Magnuson said. “There’s no meaning to it, it’s just a ‘ha-ha’ sort of thing. And then you have thrillers—and not just any thrillers. Bad thrillers, where they sacrifice everything for the scare. It’s not even a good scare; it’s more of like a jump scare. It’s not one of those really good scares that sinks into you and sticks with you long after the movie ends.”

Magnuson has problems with certain movies and the genres they belong to, but he also isn’t a fan of some of the expectations that govern the whole industry.

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Senior William Magnuson helps junior Noah Powell use a steady cam while filming the Taco Shack Pep Rally. “I was spotting him, that means I was making sure he wouldn’t fall or walk into something,” Magnuson said. Photo by Madison Olsen.

“What people like to see in festivals is not comedies and not action movies, even if it’s a great action movie,” Magnuson said.

“You’re pressured to make a deep, artsy film, and I was never really interested in that.”

Although “artsy” films aren’t Magnuson’s favorite, he has had his share of experiences with them.

“You can make anything deep and artsy if you do it right,” he said. “One time [I made] an ‘experimental film’ that was just two or three minutes of artsy stuff. I hated [the film] because it was just abstract shots of just like blowing out a candle. People thought it was great and all, but I didn’t like making it. It looked good, but it didn’t mean anything.”

Apart from his “experimental film,” Magnuson has made Lotto, Heiwa, Russian Psycho, Fallen and Rain.

“My last film I made, Alzheimer’s, I was really pressured by my class to make a really serious, good, film,” Magnuson said. “And when they say good, they mean artsy, dramatic and serious. So I kind of caved in, and I came up with the idea that [the character] has Alzheimer’s and his caretakers are Jewish and they find out that he was a Nazi. It was a cool idea and all, but it didn’t really have too much meaning, and halfway through the movie everything fell apart.

“It was the worst experience for me directing because I caved, and I didn’t have any heart into what I was filming, and it just looked terrible. The shots were pretty good at the beginning, but then it turned into me just trying to get it done. It was a 20-minute film, so it was a hard thing to do because usually it

takes like day or two to do a five-minute scene so I just didn’t finish it. It’s probably not the best way to deal with failure, but that’s what happened.”

Learning to deal with failure is just one part of the filmmaker’s struggle: now, Magnuson has to tackle his postsecondary plans: majoring in film. “[Pratt is] probably my No. 1 school I’d apply to, but it’d be a miracle if I got in and another miracle if I could pay for it. Then my safe option would be UNT because they have a decent film program, and it’s a nice town, and I’d probably take an acting class and take a film class and just get into both sides. I’d be happy to be a part of any part of the film industry just to where I feel like I can do something meaningful and leave an impression on someone. As long as I can make a living.”

Magnuson is already looking beyond his college years.

“I wouldn’t move to LA,” Magnuson said. “LA would be too hard because everyone goes to LA. It’s totally saturated with talent, so there’s no chance [you can make it] unless you’re already solidified as someone. So I think the best option for me would be New York. I think I could survive in New York. It’d probably be hard, but I think I could do it.

“My other option would be New Mexico. They have an amazing film industry out there, and it’s just blowing up right now so that’d be a great place to go and find work.”

Although Magnuson doesn’t quite know what the future holds for his film career, someday you might be looking at his name among the list of Oscar nominees.

27 oct. 2017

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Sophomore Jackson Sutton was featured in The Shield last spring for his outstanding achievements in linguistics as well as his passion for art—talents which he had always hoped would someday land him a seat on stage next to his hero, Ellen DeGeneres. Sutton, diagnosed with autism at age 4, has been watching The Ellen Show since fourth grade and hasn’t been featured on the it yet, but he’s gotten close: on Sept. 18, he sat in her studio audience.

“To say he is happy [about going to see Ellen] is an understatement,” Jackson’s mom, Rene Craft, wrote on Jackson’s website, jacksonseyetv.com, before the two of them flew to Los Angeles for the taping. “He has been watching the show and been positively influenced by all things Ellen for years. He just recently said, ‘Even though Ellen never notices me, I will still be kind every day.’”

SCORES teacher Christopher Purkiss and teaching assistant Andrew Cooke posted to their Twitter accounts using the hashtag #JacksonMeetsEllen before the show to try and make the dream of Ellen noticing Sutton a reality.

This much anticipated encounter has not happened yet, despite attempts at catching the star’s attention by Sutton’s teachers and mother. “[Jackson’s] mom has tried tons of times.

She’s definitely tried for Ellen, like she’s emailed Ellen, sent letters to Ellen, sent Ellen his artwork, like tons of stuff,” Cooke said.

Craft’s correspondences have gone unanswered by Ellen, but a family friend managed to get Sutton tickets to a taping of The

#Jackson Meets Sophomore celebrates birthday by attending taping of the show that changed his life Ellen Show as a 16th birthday present.

“When he was given these tickets by a good friend, whose daughter works in LA, he said, ‘I will treasure this till my dying day,’” Craft said.

“And he means it. He will never forget this.”

His excitement didn’t stop there. Sutton made sure his friends at school knew about the news as well.

“He came into [the classroom] and he was like, ‘I’ve got an announcement!’,” Purkiss said.

“He made everyone be quiet and he filmed our response. He said, ‘I’m going to see the Ellen show!’

And we all screamed and yelled, and he was clearly recording to show his mom. It was very fun.”

Sutton woke up the morning of his 16th birthday and headed down to the long-awaited taping with Craft and his godmother, whose

birthday was the next day.

“When [Ellen] went through the audience for her big entrance, it was such a surprise,” Sutton said.

Sutton’s surprise didn’t just come from the experience of being in the audience, though.

“Ellen came in from the back of the theater and Jackson put out his hand to touch her,” Craft said. “He didn’t quite reach her, but he was very close to her as she came down the aisle.”

According to Craft, The Ellen Show has helped Sutton with his autism because it was one of the first things from the “outside” world that helped him add more social components to his life.

“She’s not just a comedian, she’s a philanthropist,” Sutton said.

—Charlie Holden

This is a drawing by Jackson Sutton that is inspired from an episode of Ellen that he saw.

Sutton, who is autistic, has watched The Ellen Show for years. “Most therapeutic literature advises you to find the thing your child loves and to join him/her in their world and try to coax them more and more into ours,” said Sutton’s mom, Rene Craft. “Little did we know that a TV talk show host would be one of the main things that our son gravitated toward as he continued to make progress.”

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1-on-1 assistance is just a visit, call, or click away!

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27 oct. 2017

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The best of both worlds

Two European exchange students find a second home in America at McCallum The first day of school is an exciting and nervewracking time for students, especially when it’s their first day at a new school. Junior Tommaso Gaddi, a first year Knight, understands this better than most—not only is he new to McCallum, he’s new to America.

Gaddi, who is from Italy, is adjusting to attending high school more than 5,000 miles away from home, but language barriers never come without difficulties.

“I like American schools because they are a lot easier than Italian schools,” Gaddi said. “Speaking English 24/7 is a difficulty sometimes, especially when a teacher speaks really really fast, but I go to tutoring and my teachers help me to understand everything they are teaching.”

Despite this obstacle, he has been able to make the most of his foreign-exchange experience, making lots of friends in the process. Some of these friends are members of the Knights JV soccer team, of which Gaddi is a part. Unfortunately, UIL rules state that foreignexchange students cannot be on varsity teams.

Despite this limitation, he still has enjoyed an authentic American experience by living with a host family.

“They are like my second family,” Gaddi said. “I have my first family in Italy and I have my second family here in America.”

—Joseph Cardenas

Last year, Jonathan Janzen was a foreignexchange student at McCallum. He had such a positive experience that he decided to come back for his sophomore year this year. Janzen, who is from Germany, has enjoyed making friends and playing soccer at his American home away from home. Like Gaddi, Janzen is unable to play on the varsity team because of UIL rules regarding exchange students and sports.

Many high school students haven’t spent more than a month or two away from their family, but Janzen has far exceeded the average visit to America. He doesn’t let that get to him, though.

“I don’t miss my home, but I do miss my siblings,” said Janzen.

Janzen lives with a host family in Austin, but he is accompanied by his uncle while living with his American family, which has helped him in his transition to life in a new country.

Janzen speaks English as if America was his first home.

“In German school we learn British English. It is the same, but [slightly] different from American English,” Janzen said.

—Joseph Cardenas

knmanagement.com/careers

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MacTheatre season takes flight

Opening musical Catch Me If You Can kicks off 2017-2018 with heavy dose of comedy & dance ABIGAIL SALAZAR staff reporter

MacTheatre started its 2017-18 season with the musical Catch Me if You Can. Junior Till Simon starred in the show as Frank Abagnale Jr., a con man who runs away from home at age 16 and manages to finagle his way into becoming a doctor, a pilot and a lawyer.

While the play offered many primary roles for individual actors, it also relied heavily on the ensemble to execute the play’s many tap and dance numbers. According to one dance ensemble member, sophomore Blair Kinsey, the dance numbers were very challenging.

“There [were] two tap dance numbers in the play, and a lot of people in the dance ensemble [hadn’t] tapped before,” Kinsey said. “This [was] a new challenge to the dance ensemble.”

Catch Me if You Can featured multiple elaborate and complex musical numbers throughout the show.

“I’m surprised by what a big role the dancing is actually, because almost every scene has a big dance number,” Kinsey said before the show opened.

Senior Tryston Davis, who played Roger, the father of Frank Jr’s girlfriend Brenda, also sang and danced in the show. Davis said doing both wasn’t too difficult a challenge.

The bigger challenge, Davis said, was bringing a character to life when that character is so different in age and background.

“It’s challenging because he is super old,” the 17-year-old Davis said of his character. “I [was supposed to be] in my 50s, and I’m not in my 50s. I’m a super energetic in person, and I [had] to be a little bit slower to match Roger.”

Davis has been a part of theatre at McCallum since his freshman year, and as the years have progressed, his passion for theatre has too.

“My freshman year, I did Ghost the Musical, the spring musical,” Davis said. “I was like ‘Oh I really like this,’ so I was thinking maybe my senior year I should do two musicals.”

Having been a part of theatre since his freshman year, Davis has been able to see the differences between all the plays and how everyone has grown.

Davis said that Catch Me If You Can was very different than the musicals he acted in earlier in his MacTheatre career—Ghost and Titanic— because it was a comedy.

Junior Sophia Mullican starred in Catch Me as Frank Jr.’s French mother Paula, who disappoints her son by separating from his alcoholic father, played by freshman Magnus Bohls.

Mullican said that Catch Me was different from earlier productions because it relied so heavily on dance numbers.

“It’s really fun,” Mullican said. “I’ve got to be really suave, and there is a lot of slow dancing.

There’s this femme fatale, and it’s fun to do the French accent.”

Earlier in the process, there were concerns surrounding the production of the show. Davis was worried about getting the whole show in sync and pulling everything off.

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2.

3.

4.

1. Juniors Matt Hernandez and Hannah Hufford dance together during Act One’s song “Jet Set.” The song features flight attendants and pilots singing about their experiences traveling the world.

2. Junior Till Simon (Frank Jr.) sings about his parent’s divorce during the beginning of the song “Someone Else’s Skin.”

3. Junior Sophia Mullican (Paula) sings during her song “Don’t Be A Stranger” where she is being interviewed by senior Tristan Tierney’s character Carl Hanratty about her son Frank Jr., who is running from the FBI. 4. The cast of You Can’t Take it with You performs the song “Doctor’s Orders” during Act Two. Photos by Dave Winter.

“Putting the whole show together has me worried, because we haven’t put both the acting and the dancing part together,” Davis said at the beginning of September.

Mullican also had her worries about getting the show put together on time to where everything is working.

“Till was gone for a long time. We had started rehearsal on July 31, and he wasn’t there for any of the rehearsal,” Mullican said. “He knows his stuff and was doing his research while in Germany, but I don’t know; that’s a lot, because we have to put him into the scenes really quick,

and there are a lot of set pieces.”

By Sept. 27, the final day of dress rehearsal, those early concerns had been put to rest. At the end of the rehearsal, the cast and crew received a heartfelt congratulation from director Joshua Denning who applauded them for getting the performance ready for opening night.

Curtains opened Sept. 28 at the McCallum Arts Center.

Once the show was done on Oct. 8 the cast recieved much postive feedbacks from fellow cast members and from audience members.

“When we got out of our costume and went

into the lobby to meet everyone, people were coming up to me and saying how great the show was and that they could tell everyone put so much effort into the production,” Davis said.

Junior Persephone Harris went to the show mutiple nights and was amazed at how the play just got better eveytime she saw it.

“I really loved the song ‘Fly Fly Away’ preformed by the character Brenda (Julia Blackmon). It was really heartwarming to me. I saw the play three times and everytime it got better and still made me cry, she was so emotionally invested in it,” Harris said.

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enior Gaby Fagelman always wanted to be an actress. She loved the Red Carpet coverage, the Oscar outfits and the crazy fashion statements associated with the industry. That was, until she realized that was the only part she liked about being an actress: the fashion. Ever since that realization, Fagelman has rejected the red carpet for the runway, leading Fagelman to organize her own benefit fashion show, featuring 18 pieces of her own design.

“I came up with the idea in April, and it’s been really fast-paced,” Fagelman said. “My stepmom co-owns a boutique called Found, and she inspired me and pushed me to do my own show. My parents were really supportive of me, but I’ve planned this whole thing by myself.”

The event took place Sunday, Sept. 24 at the Peached Social House, and all the proceeds from the event went to benefit Dress for Success, a charity that’s especially close to Fagelman’s heart. “[Dress for Success] takes women who are going through a really hard time in their lives, financially, and gets them a custom-fit outfit, like a suit with a handbag,” Fagelman said. “The [charity] gives them makeup and jewelry, then takes them through training so that they can be ready to go on job interviews. They do mock interviews and basically get these women jobs.”

Fagelman was drawn to Dress for Success when

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the charity helped someone she admired and loved. The charity’s main goal is to help people in the community through fashion, which Fagelman hopes to do with her designs.

“My boyfriend’s aunt went through this process when she was going through a hard time, and they helped get her on her feet and get her a job,” Fagelman said. “I know people who have been personally affected by this charity: it’s really close to my heart. I chose it because my brand, Gaby, is about embracing being yourself as a woman, and I love how this charity inspires women and helps them through fashion.”

The combination of ticket sales, a GoFundMe campaign and a silent auction at the event allowed Fagelman to raise more than $4,000 for Dress for Success.

“I really want to make sure that whatever I did was going to benefit someone else because I’m not doing this for the money,” Fagelman said. “I’m not making a penny from this: it’s all going to them.”

While she hasn’t gained financially, Fagelman said she he has gained valuable experience that will help her in the fashion field. Dress for Success even offered Fagelman an internship, which she had to turn down because of her school schedule.

“I’ve learned how to negotiate prices and talk to all these people,” Fagelman said. “Since it’s a benefit show, people were really willing to help me and donate their services to support the charity.”

The theme of the show was Bohemian garden, but according to Fagelman, her line was not the average take on the Bohemian style. She

Senior stages her own benefit show, raises more than $4,000 to aid Dress for Success

“The late nights saying up until 12, or going home during my off period, and back pains from being bent over a sewing machine. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s definitely worth it.”

—Gaby Fagelman incorporated vibrant colors and patterns in her designs to give the show a modern twist.

“I think when a lot of people think of Bohemian, they think really toned down colors,” Fagelman said. “All the laces that I’m using that have Bohemian touches are vibrant and colorful patterns. It’s way different from anything I’ve done before, since normally I make monochromatic, simple clothing.”

When Fagelman took a trip to Spain over the summer, she noticed people were wearing extremely exotic colors and had a bold sense of fashion, which inspired the bright floral patterns evident in the designs in the show.

“A lot of times in Europe, people wear very neutral colors,” Fagelman said. “In Spain it’s a lot more colorful and I got really inspired by the fabrics that people wore. I’m importing a ton of different fabrics from Spain, Canada and New

senior Evalyn McCusker

Anterria White

junior Anna Marceau

senior Sophia Bastidas

senior Alabel Chaplin

senior Daejha Taylor

junior Camille Selis

Amber Fors

York, so it’s very worldly.”

Fagelman used her experience abroad to inspire the theme for her collection, which uses colors and fabrics to express her life and her experience growing up. The collection progresses from warm colors to cool tones to neutrals, symbolizing the journey to adulthood and expresses the changes in Fagelman’s personal style as she matured.

“The collection is the modern girl’s journey from adolescence to adulthood,” Fagelman said. “I used to wear super bright colors, and I didn’t have a care in the world. As I got older, I [began to] dress more neutral, and got more serious, more focused.

I’m expressing my life and my emotions through that girl’s journey.”

Fagelman believes she can use her pieces to inspire other women, which is one of the reasons she chose to raise money and awareness for Dress for Success. She believes her feminist line of clothing will make women feel comfortable and confident in themselves and empower women through fashion.

“I think fashion can be a really cruel industry, and I really want to change that with my brand and make [the world] a really positive place for people to wear beautiful clothes,” Fagelman said.

“My mission wherever I go is to [make] you feel good in whatever you wear, whatever body type, skin color or orientation you are.”

To find more detailed information about each look in Fagelman’s collection, please visit macshieldonline.com.

27 oct. 2017

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enior Gaby Fagelman always wanted to be an actress. She loved the Red Carpet coverage, the Oscar outfits and the crazy fashion statements associated with the industry. That was, until she realized that was the only part she liked about being an actress: the fashion. Ever since that realization, Fagelman has rejected the red carpet for the runway, leading Fagelman to organize her own benefit fashion show, featuring 18 pieces of her own design.

“I came up with the idea in April, and it’s been really fast-paced,” Fagelman said. “My stepmom co-owns a boutique called Found, and she inspired me and pushed me to do my own show. My parents were really supportive of me, but I’ve planned this whole thing by myself.”

The event took place Sunday, Sept. 24 at the Peached Social House, and all the proceeds from the event went to benefit Dress for Success, a charity that’s especially close to Fagelman’s heart. “[Dress for Success] takes women who are going through a really hard time in their lives, financially, and gets them a custom-fit outfit, like a suit with a handbag,” Fagelman said. “The [charity] gives them makeup and jewelry, then takes them through training so that they can be ready to go on job interviews. They do mock interviews and basically get these women jobs.”

Fagelman was drawn to Dress for Success when

14 a&e

the charity helped someone she admired and loved. The charity’s main goal is to help people in the community through fashion, which Fagelman hopes to do with her designs.

“My boyfriend’s aunt went through this process when she was going through a hard time, and they helped get her on her feet and get her a job,” Fagelman said. “I know people who have been personally affected by this charity: it’s really close to my heart. I chose it because my brand, Gaby, is about embracing being yourself as a woman, and I love how this charity inspires women and helps them through fashion.”

The combination of ticket sales, a GoFundMe campaign and a silent auction at the event allowed Fagelman to raise more than $4,000 for Dress for Success.

“I really want to make sure that whatever I did was going to benefit someone else because I’m not doing this for the money,” Fagelman said. “I’m not making a penny from this: it’s all going to them.”

While she hasn’t gained financially, Fagelman said she he has gained valuable experience that will help her in the fashion field. Dress for Success even offered Fagelman an internship, which she had to turn down because of her school schedule.

“I’ve learned how to negotiate prices and talk to all these people,” Fagelman said. “Since it’s a benefit show, people were really willing to help me and donate their services to support the charity.”

The theme of the show was Bohemian garden, but according to Fagelman, her line was not the average take on the Bohemian style. She

Senior stages her own benefit show, raises more than $4,000 to aid Dress for Success

“The late nights saying up until 12, or going home during my off period, and back pains from being bent over a sewing machine. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s definitely worth it.”

—Gaby Fagelman incorporated vibrant colors and patterns in her designs to give the show a modern twist.

“I think when a lot of people think of Bohemian, they think really toned down colors,” Fagelman said. “All the laces that I’m using that have Bohemian touches are vibrant and colorful patterns. It’s way different from anything I’ve done before, since normally I make monochromatic, simple clothing.”

When Fagelman took a trip to Spain over the summer, she noticed people were wearing extremely exotic colors and had a bold sense of fashion, which inspired the bright floral patterns evident in the designs in the show.

“A lot of times in Europe, people wear very neutral colors,” Fagelman said. “In Spain it’s a lot more colorful and I got really inspired by the fabrics that people wore. I’m importing a ton of different fabrics from Spain, Canada and New

senior Evalyn McCusker

Anterria White

junior Anna Marceau

senior Sophia Bastidas

senior Alabel Chaplin

senior Daejha Taylor

junior Camille Selis

Amber Fors

York, so it’s very worldly.”

Fagelman used her experience abroad to inspire the theme for her collection, which uses colors and fabrics to express her life and her experience growing up. The collection progresses from warm colors to cool tones to neutrals, symbolizing the journey to adulthood and expresses the changes in Fagelman’s personal style as she matured.

“The collection is the modern girl’s journey from adolescence to adulthood,” Fagelman said. “I used to wear super bright colors, and I didn’t have a care in the world. As I got older, I [began to] dress more neutral, and got more serious, more focused.

I’m expressing my life and my emotions through that girl’s journey.”

Fagelman believes she can use her pieces to inspire other women, which is one of the reasons she chose to raise money and awareness for Dress for Success. She believes her feminist line of clothing will make women feel comfortable and confident in themselves and empower women through fashion.

“I think fashion can be a really cruel industry, and I really want to change that with my brand and make [the world] a really positive place for people to wear beautiful clothes,” Fagelman said.

“My mission wherever I go is to [make] you feel good in whatever you wear, whatever body type, skin color or orientation you are.”

To find more detailed information about each look in Fagelman’s collection, please visit macshieldonline.com.

27 oct. 2017

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This month: October

Fall in love with thrifting It’s always nice to get a few unique items at a cheap price, and with the colder months approaching, you might want to stock up your closet with clothes that are on the warmer side. Whether you’re a thrifting guru or a novice shopper, Monkies Vintage has got your back. Right down the street from Urban Outfitters on Guadalupe, Monkies constantly is updating their collection of funky jackets and vintage tees at reasonable costs. Still not convinced? Check out their Instagram, where some of their best in-store finds are featured. And if you see something you really like, you can even order it through a direct message.

Monkies Vintage is open noon to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and until 6 p.m. on Sunday. The store’s address is 1904 Guadalupe St C.

DIY Halloween treat It’s always great to add some Halloween spirit to your plate, and these easy DIY Halloween spider cookies are perfect for making your month a little more spooky. They’re great just for last-minute party snacks, trick or treaters or just to enjoy.

1. Take an Oreo and stick four pretzel sticks in each side.

INGREDIENTS: • 1 box of Halloween Oreos (regular will do) • 1 bag of pretzel sticks • 1 container of chocolate icing • 1 bag of M&Ms

2. Take an M&M and dip one side into the icing.

3. Attach two M&Ms with icing on one of the sides of the cookie in a row.

4. ENJOY!

Get spooked!

As Halloween nears, it’s always good to get in a spooky mood, and what better way to do that than hearing some good, old fashioned ghost stories?

Taking a ghost tour is the perfect way to hear real, frightening stories of events that have happened in Austin. There are many different tours to choose from in our capital city, but Austin Ghost Tours is a solid option because they have three tours that feature different parts of Austin. One takes thrill-seekers around the Capitol, the Driskill Hotel and the old jailhouse.

The other tours include the historic district and historic warehouses. All three start in different locations that are convenient to the tour route.

Tours are $20 per person and run 90 minutes.

The Capitol ghost tour runs every Friday and every night the week leading up to Halloween at 8 p.m. The historic district tour runs every Saturday at 8 p.m., and the warehouse district tour is every Sunday at 8 p.m.

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The Driskill Hotel is a main attraction on the Capitol ghost tour every Friday night leading up to Halloween. Photo by Matthew Ruttledge/Creative Commmons.

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STEVEN TIBBETTS staff reporter

Only a short time after completing a national cycling race this summer in Louisville, Ky., sophomore Eli Husted stood on the podium staring at the cameras. On that podium, Husted held up both hands, signaling what place he had finished: first.

Husted took no time to dwell on what he had accomplished. His mind raced ahead to next year when he will try to win the race for the third straight time. “[I wondered] if I could do it again next year,” Husted said.

Husted’s c ycling career started four years ago, when he was 11. He had just decided to quit playing soccer and wanted to star t a new activity. Husted says he chose ELI HUSTED cycling in order to get closer to Amateur Road his dad, Michael National Champion Husted, who is 2016 also a cyclist.

13-to-14-Year-Olds The two started 2017 riding together, 15-to-16-Year-Olds and still do to t h i s d ay.

Husted soon learned that he loved to ride his bike.

As Husted started to train with other cyclists besides his dad, he noticed there were even more things that he enjoyed about cycling.

“I like all the supportive people,” Husted said. “I get a huge amount of joy [from] riding my bike and getting to spend time with people I wouldn’t normally spend time with.”

Husted practiced and improved at cycling, and soon he was good enough to compete against—and even beat—some of the top cyclists in the country.

In the 2016 Amateur Road National Championships, Husted crossed the finish line in first place, beating out more than 75 other 13-to-14-year-old boys who competed.

The credit for his success, Husted’s dad says, goes to both his raw talent and his ability to stay focused throughout a race.

“Eli knows that he enters the game with a lot of natural ability, but he understands that every kid at his level does too,” the elder Husted said in an email message. “What sets him apart is his ability to remain focused, … and he’s a merciless assassin on the bike.”

The win only motivated Husted to get ready for the next year, when he would have to compete against better cyclists in the 15-to-16-year-old age division.

“I prepared really well,” Husted said.

A year later, Husted went back to Louisville for the 2017 Amateur Road National Championships trying to defend his title. At the start of the race, Husted decided to stay with the main group of riders.

“I didn’t do anything until halfway through [the race], because I didn’t need to,” Husted said.

Then Husted went to work, opening up a

27 oct. 2017

Cycling to the top Sophomore defends national amateur title

gap between him and most of his competition.

“About halfway through [the race] I attacked the field and brought one other kid with me,” Husted said. “We worked together to stay away from everybody until about one kilometer to go.”

Then Husted broke away from his one remaining competitor, Jared Scott from

Boulder, Colo., in order to finish in first and retain his title. Husted says he felt relieved after winning for a second time in a row.

“I just wanted to defend the title,” Husted said.

That is also Husted’s goal for next year’s race. Additionally, to go along with that difficult short-term goal, Husted also has a

UPPER LEFT: Eli Husted stands on top of the podium after winning the 2017 Amateur Road National Championships. “[It was] a great relief,” Husted said. “I had won the year before too, and I just wanted to defend the title.” Photo courtesy of USA Cycling.

lofty long-term goal he would like to achieve during his cycling career.

“I would like to end up [on the] World Tour,” he said.

Husted says he knows that his wish to be a professional cyclist is an ambitious goal, but he also believes he can achieve it. Just ask the other 68 kids he beat this summer.

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For Perkins bros, Fridays a family affair Brothers Max, Miles have both been a big part of McCallum’s historic football season GREGORY JAMES staff reporter

Senior Max Perkins has been playing football since the seventh grade, and until this year his brother, sophomore Miles Perkins, has been supporting him from the bleachers.

“I’m used to seeing him in the stands,” Max said. “It’s definitely a different thing to see him on the sideline in cheer.

But it’s pretty fun.”

Miles has been interested in cheer since last year, but freshmen are not allowed to join the cheer team, so he joined as soon as he could. Since making the cheer team, Miles has attended summer and afternoon practices to learn cheers and to prepare for football games.

“It’s great having Miles on the team this year,” cheer coach Chastity Colbert said. “He’s a sophomore, but he’s already showing leadership skills. He’s really friendly to everyone. Miles works extremely hard and is motivated to do new things. He has a great attitude.”

In addition to bringing positive energy to the team, Miles has been able to literally support his teammates in his position as a back spotter for one of the stunt groups.

“I believe that our stunt team has grown so much this year,” Miles said. “At the beginning of the year we were not good at stunts, and now we are more comfortable with our routines.”

Like the cheer squad, the football team has improved its chemistry over the course of the school year.

“I think everyone has gotten more confident with each other and more comfortable,” Max said. “The seniors and juniors didn’t hang out with each other last year, but this year everyone is hanging out together and that makes it special.”

Max and Miles might not technically be teammates, but they support each other like they are.

“I think it’s an awesome experience to be really close to my brother,” Miles said “being able to see him do something he really appreciates while he supports me doing something I really like doing.”

Brad Perkins, the father of Max and Miles, was supportive of his sons joining cheer and football.

“I’m excited and proud Max and Miles are participating in something they both love,” Brad said.

Before high school, both Miles and Max were taekwondo students of their father’s but eventually found their passions in different sports.

“They both wanted to explore other sports,” Brad said. “When Miles said he was wanting to tryout for cheer, I fully supported him. I thought he would be an awesome cheerleader.”

The whole family supports each other, and Mr. Perkins said he always encouraged his kids to do what they wanted.

“Football was a great fix for Max, and he loved it. I never pushed them into doing either sport.” Mr. Perkins said. “It was all their decision to join both cheerleading and football.”

One of the best moments in this year’s season, according to both Max and Miles, was beating LBJ on Sept. 29.

“I tried a lot harder than I had in past games in the season,” Max said. “To get ready, I pictured destroying the person in front of me so they couldn’t get to the quarterback.”

Varsity head coach Charles Taylor said that Max has been a leader and a key contributor to the team all season long.

“He’s a senior this year, so he knows what is expected and how the system works,” Taylor said. “We have a strong offensive line that allows us to be able to run the ball more, and Max plays his role there.”

During the games, Max in on the field, and Miles is on the sidelines. The reverse is true during the game-day festivities leading up to kickoff. During the pep rallies, Miles and the

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The brothers stand together at the end of the Seguin football game on Sept. 14. As part of his cheer duties, Miles has to run the sideline with the McCallum flag after every Mac touchdown. Max and his mates on the offensive line have made sure Miles has gotten a good workout during each football game so far this season. Photo by Gregory James. cheerleaders are center stage and the Max and football players are off to the side.

“Pep rallies are the most stressful part of game day,” Miles said. “We have to get everything ready in a short amount of time and try not to forget our cheers.”

Both brothers have become an unmistakable part of football game days. By being involved in each other’s lives these brothers have crafted an unbreakable bond.

MILES

Favorite catchphrase: “Oh no, Sweetie,” a saying of cheer captain Daejha Taylor Favorite pregame meal: Chick-Fil-A Favorite weather to play in: Colder weather with rain

“ I t’ s a n aweso m e MAX experience, being Favorite catchphrase: able to see him “Boogie Toogie” do something Favorite weather to he really play in: appreciates rain while he Favorite supports pregame meal: me doing ThunderCloud “I’m excited and proud Max and Miles are something I participating in something really like doing.” they both love.”

—Miles Perkins —Mac parent Brad Perkins 27 oct. 2017

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25-5A Sports roundup Knights cruise past Crockett to get ro 8-0; Perez scores 3 TDs The varsity football team won its eighth straight game on Friday night by shutting out the Crockett Cougars 55-0 at House Park.

The Knights, who are ranked No. 21 in the state in Dave Campbell’s 5A Texas Football rankings, are 4-0 in district and 8-0 overall.

The team’s run has been fueled by a strong rushing offense and an opportunistic defense that has made big plays when it needed to and has shut out its last two opponents.

Averaging 394.5 rushing yards per game, the Knights logged 426 more rushing yards versus Crockett on Friday. Max Perez ran for 116 yards and three touchdowns and passed for another 103 yards and a score. Alexander Julian led all Knight rushers with 117 yards and two touchdowns. Deron Gage ran for 92 yards and added another 39 yards as a pass receiver.

The Knights led the Cougars 7-0 after Perez ran 16 yards for a touchdown, and Ian Carson converted the extra point. Later in the first quarter, Perez found the end zone as a rusher for the second time, and before the first quarter ended, a 30-yard Perez-to-Gage pass play set up Julian for a short TD run.

Heading into the second quarter, Mac led, 20-0. The Knights added four touchdowns in the second quarter. Gage ran 78 yards down the Knight sideline for the first score of the quarter, then JB Faught returned a fumble 18 yards for a defensive touchdown. Julian then added his second touchdown run.

The quarter closed with 25-yard strike from Perez to Davis Roe who caught the ball and tip toed to the corner of the end zone for a 48-0 halftime score. It was a good night for Roe who before the game was named the Dave Campbell’s Texas Football Athlete of the Week.

The first unit made one more appearance to start the third

25-5A FOOTBALL School

Wins

Losses

McCallum Austin High LBJ Austin Reagan Crockett Lanier Travis

4 3 2 1 1 1 0

0 1 1 2 2 3 3

Source: Max Preps

quarter, making a statement touchdown on Perez’s 59-yard run, his third rushing score of the game.

That was the end of the scoring for both teams as the Knights ran out the clock, and looked ahead to a bye week this week then a challenge from the Lanier Vikings (2-5) on Friday Nov. 3 at House Park.

In his postgame comments, Coach Taylor urged the team to continue improving each week, starting with the upcoming week of practice.

—Greg James

Volleyball finishes second in district, heads into playoffs The varsity lost another tough five-setter to Ann Richards on Oct. 24th in the Mac gym. While it was a tough loss to take, it did not affect the Knights’ playoff seeding. The team finished second in 25-5A district play with a record of 10-4, one game ahead of the Stars’ 9-5. The teammates will face the No. 3 seed from District 26-5A in the opening round of the 5A state playoffs on Oct. 30 or Oct. 31.

25-5A VOLLEYBALL School Austin McCallum Ann Richards LBJ Crockett Travis Lanier Reagan

Wins

Losses

14 10 9 8 7 3 1 0

0 4 5 6 7 8 11 11

Source: Max Preps

Lynch, Baylor, Kershner lead swimmers at AISD Invitational

Senior Molly Blankenship hugs sister junior Ellie before she raced in the 200-yard individual medley. Ellie placed in the top eight in the 100-yard butterfly. Photo by Audrey Sayer.

27 oct. 2017

Alex Lynch placed first in the 100-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 200-yard individual medley on Friday leading the Mac swim team to a sixth place finish among 5A schools at the AISD Invitational at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center.

In order to earn points for their team, swimmers must place in the top eight places in an individual or a team relay event.

The boys and girls team both placed sixth among 5A schools with 38 and 28 points respectively. The combined total of 66 points was also good enough for an overall sixth-place finish.

Lynch, sophomore Cole Kershner and freshman Madi Baylor each posted points for the team in four different events at the meet.

Kershner placed in the top eight in the 200-yard individual medley (seventh) and the 100-yard backstroke (eighth).

Baylor took sixth place in the girls 200-yard freestyle and seventh in the 100-yard backstroke.

Kershner and Lynch teamed up with Andrew Lewis and Ivan Zaplatar to take fifth place in both the 200-yard medley relay and the 400-yard freestyle relay. “What was so cool about this [relay],” Coach Jeff Rudy said, “was they were actually our ‘B’ relay, but swam in place of the ‘A’ relay and still finished in the top eight.”

Baylor was also on two top-8 relay teams. She swam with Molly and Ellie Blankenship and Bianca Ramirez on the 200yard freestyle relay team that placed fourth and with Henna McCrae, Ellie Blankenship and Ramirez on the 200-yard med-

ley relay team that placed sixth.

Ellie Blankenship earned points on the girls side by placing in the top eight in the 100-yard butterfly.

Lynch earned first place by swimming the fastest time at the meet for all 5A swimmers, but he did not swim against any of his 5A competitors in his heat. He was seeded in the fastest heat and swam against all 6A swimmers. There was only one other sophomore in the heat and no freshmen.

He said afterward that he was pleased that he posted his fastest time of the season: 1.03.72.

“I was happy to have dropped from last weekend where I raced in a club meet,” he said.

Lynch still has a way to go to top his fastest time from last season (1:00.84), but this is only the second meet of the year.

“As you get farther and farther into swimming, the harder it becomes to drop [your time],” Lynch said.

He added that his long-term goal in the 100-yard breaststroke is to approach the 56.00 standard needed to qualify as a National Interscholastic Swimming Association All-American.

He admitted it would also be nice to break the minute mark because that is “a big time barrier in breaststroke.”

Cedar Park Vista Ridge won the 5A meet in all three categories scoring 133 team points in the boys meet and 156 points in the girls meet for an overall point total of 289.

—Dave Winter

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Surprising team success and even tough losses have made senior Arnold stronger

Above: Arnold is all smiles during the Knights’ four-set road victory at LBJ on Sept. 12. Photo by Lily McCormick.

C CURTING ONFIDENCE

CHARLIEE ARNOLD BY THE NUMBERS SP (sets played): 98 K (kills): 137 PCT (kills-errors/total attempts): 45.2 BS (block solo): 40 TB (triple block): 1.000 A (assist): 26 Source: Max Preps

Executing a textbook tip, senior Charliee Arnold came up tall last Friday at Lanier as the Knights sank the host Vikings in straight sets 25-16, 25-17, 25-16. Photo by Bella Russo.

The Shield: What has been the best volleyball game this season?

Charliee Arnold: I want to say for me, it would be against Ann Richards. It was just a hard game for us.

TS: What has been the hardest game to push through this season?

CA: Austin High. When we go to their home, it’s so hard to get into our zone.

TS: What is your number and what is the significance of it?

CA: My number is 7. It is a pretty important to me because my dad died when I was 7 in the year 2007.

TS: What position do you play?

CA: I’ve played setter, middle, right side and outside this season.

TS: What have been some of the biggest differences between this years team and last years team?

CA: Last season we had a lot of seniors on the team, so we had a lot of vets. This season

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we have a lot of new players coming up from JV and freshman.

TS: So how is that going?

CA: It’s been a learning process, but we are starting to get the hang of how to play together.

TS: How have you guys already improved over this season?

CA: We are definitely more confident than I thought we would be. We aren’t scared of anybody. We take L’s sometimes, but we always learn from them.

TS: Has your team had any struggles this season? How have you overcome them?

CA: We haven’t really had too many struggles this season. Although we did start off this season with a lot of losses and a little drama, once district started all of that kind of went away, and we have just been focusing on playing the best we can.

TS: How do you get in your zone when you are about to play a game?

CA: I get really lit by listening to music, and I just eat and I think about the good stuff. Oh! And I also watch men’s volleyball.

TS: What is the biggest difference between men’s volleyball and women’s volleyball?

CA: Men are so naturally strong, so there is never a rally in volleyball. Watching women’s volleyball is kind of just like watching high school volleyball.

TS: What are some of your upcoming games and which one are you most nervous for?

CA: I was pretty nervous for Ann Richards, and that was also Senior Night. We went in confident last game and then lost.

TS: What are you hoping for your senior season?

CA: I am hoping for a dub in playoffs and a bid from a college.

TS: Which colleges are you looking into?

CA: Anything honestly, just someone throw me an offer over here. But, I have a tryout this upcoming month for Temple College.

TS: How are you feeling about those?

CA: I’m feeling kind of nervous, but I know what I can do TS: How do you feel about how you played against Ann Richards?

CA: I left it all on the court, I had a few dull moments but I easily recovered.

TS: How do you think the teams loss will affect how your team will play during playoffs?

CA: We placed second in district so i think we will play another district team that placed third. I think it will be a fairly competitive game.

TS: What will you miss most about volleyball at McCallum?

CA: I’ll miss the competitive atmosphere and just being apart of an amazing team.

—Maddie Doran

27 oct. 2017

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Perez passes towards perfection

Left: Perez links pinkies with teammate senior Keagan Aleman in celebration of the Taco Shack Bowl championship Perez warms up his arm win. Photo by Madison Olsen. at the annual Blue vs. Grey scrimmage.

Below: Perez embraces with on Aug. 19. Photo by Dave Winter. senior Kolena Kovar after the 55-17 win over the Lehman Lobos. Photo

by Gregory James.

Senior quarterback Max Perez leads undefeated Knights to potentially historic run

On Aug. 31, the Knights took home the Taco Shack trophy The Shield: How have you been feeling for the second year in about how you have been playing this a row. Perez connected football season? with Deron Gage for Max Perez: I think I have been playing the game’s first pretty good. This is definitely my best year out touchdown. of the past three years that I have been playing Photo by on varsity. I think now that I have developed Dave Winter. as a player, it is all just coming slower, the game doesn’t feel like it’s going 100 miles per hour like it did when I was a sophomore.

Physically I feel like I have gotten better. I am just bigger, faster and stronger than I was last year which has definitely helped me. I saw I was totaling 1,300 yards, which is really impressive, because this is my first year doing that. So, I just feel like I am doing good.

TS: How do you think the team has been playing as a whole?

MP: I can’t even begin to explain how proud I am of everybody. I knew that this group was special and that we could do something good. Everyone has been executing their assignments and they are doing exactly what they have been told by their coaches. I never knew AJ [Alexander Julian] was going to rush for as many yards as he has. If you told me sophomore year, I would have never believed you. If you said that Jack Switzer was going to play on the defensive line, I would have never believed it. We just do it for each other. As a team, we have just been playing extraordinarily well.

TS: Do you guys get along pretty well and how does that help you on the field?

MP: Since the majority of our team is seniors, we have all been together for four years, and we have always talked about the success that we were going to have in the future, and I feel like it’s finally here now. We hang out a lot after football, and team dinners are always a blast. We joke around with each other a lot and we sometimes argue, but we always end up fixing it and just moving on.

TS: How do you feel going into playoffs?

MP: Playoffs are a different game, but I feel like we are very ready. We need to keep preparing more and more. I feel like I won’t know exactly what we should be expecting until we see the team. I know I will be prepared though. Same with my offensive line, AJ, we are all ready to just make a run for it. That’s what we have been saying since the summer. I feel mentally ready, but it is going to take time for everything else to come together.

TS: Are you doing anything special to prepare for the state playoffs?

MP: We just stick to our normal routines and go through our practices. Then on Thursday we have a walk through. We just like to stick with that. Our coaches don’t want to mess up anything because they do not want to mess up our vibe.

27 oct. 2017

Above: Perez screams with laughter as he witnesses his teammates being kissed by their moms on the Sept.

29 pep rally before the LBJ game. Photo by Dave Winter.

Left: Perez scored the second of three rushing touchdowns he scored against Crockett. Photo by Gregory James.

Perez celebrates with teammates after the 6331 win vs. Seguin on Sept. 14. , which improved McCallum’s record to 3-0. Photo by Gregory James.

TS: How do you feel going into the next game?

MP: Luckily we have a bye week this week, so having some time off will be nice. But then we play Lanier, which should be another good win for us. We will have this time to prepare for what is to come.

TS: Is there any significance behind your number?

MP: I have gone through a lot of numbers. I looked up to a quarterback in the NFL named Andy Dalton who was No. 14. I feel like I play like him; the way I throw is like him. I wanted to change it, but my family told me that I changed my number too many times.

TS: What is the pressure like playing a game that most of the student body comes out to watch?

During the Austin High game, Perez finished with 135 passing yards, adding to his 600-plus so far this year. Photo by Dave Winter.

MP: The LBJ game was probably the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done, when I was a sophomore. This is my third year doing it, so now that the game has slowed down a little bit, I feel a little better. I am not all jittery, and I don’t get butterflies anymore; there are no nerves. I just know what I am there to do, and I just try to execute.

TS: Anyone to shout out for all your success?

MP: Shout-out the offensive line, shout-out AJ, all the coaches, especially Coach Shneider.

—Maddie Doran

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Freaky Fridays

AB schedule puts extra stress on students WILLIAM TYREE staff reporter

We all know the feeling: you’ve been through a long day of your B-day classes, then, to your dismay, you realize that you have to do the exact same thing over again tomorrow. This why I dislike our A/B schedule, in which we have set A and B days on Monday through Thursday but alternate Fridays between A and B. There are some advantages of the alternating Friday. A/B schedule. For one thing, it makes the A days and B days even over the course of the year, and it organizes most of the week into a standard routine. While there are benefits, there are even more disadvantages to our current schedule. First of all, the double-B Fridays, which give you a double dose of your B-day classes on Thursday and Fridays, mean that oftentimes you have much less time to study for tests or do your homework. When you consider that Friday B days cause you to have to wait upwards of five days to see your A day teachers, it creates a huge problem.

Sophomore Maddie Angle agrees that double B-days hurt her learning process.

“I have a teacher on a Thursday and then a test the next day,” Angle said. “Usually I would be able to study in class, but at the same time finish that classwork and also study at home.”

Some students, however, like aspects of our current schedule. Sophomore Annika Katz sees more benefits to the schedule than drawbacks.

“I’m a fan,” Katz said. “I like having about an hour-and-a-half for each class, because if we had all eight classes in a day, we wouldn’t have enough time to get through everything. I like the having the extra time in the classes I like.”

Though having extra time in your classes is great, I don’t think that what we have right now is the best solution. Sophomore Marisa Goodson agrees with me; she believes the current system

Cartoon by Charlie Holden

22 opinion

has fundamental drawbacks, and some changes need to be made.

“I think it [the schedule] should probably be changed,” Goodson said. “The teachers are like, ‘That’s not the learning way, and you need to learn a little bit each day; otherwise, you’ll forget.’

The drawbacks are if you don’t like your B day class you kind of get a double dosage of it, and sometimes there can be homework that’s due the next day, and you have to hurry up to get it done.”

While some may want to keep the A/B schedule the way it is, many students, including me, want it changed. Proponents of the schedule argue that the current system helps ACC dual-credit students, those participating in student sharing, by ensuring that the pattern of scheduling for the year is consistent. But there are better ways to achieve that outcome. Double B-Days create too many harms: extra homework and tests and falling behind in A-day classes.

Having a C-day on Fridays would be a good compromise. Getting reinforcement on the ideas learned throughout the week would be helpful as well as giving a variety to the schedule. Having eight classes once a week would most likely make it easier on students, and make it so the classes the other four days are much more even.

Another possible, if more radical solution, would be to have longer school days, but fewer of them per week. If you have a longer day paired with four days per week, it would be easier for everyone, even the student-sharing students. There are even more ways to format the schedule, many of which could benefit the students by giving them more sleep and hopefully, a more consistent schedule.

I don’t agree with the way our schedule is currently formatted. Throughout the school year, there are many aspects of the schedule that place an unfair burden on students. There are a multitude of alternatives, and if enacted, any of them could help many students with sleep, academic performance and school in general.

TREATS

Cartoon

by Charlie Holden

... not tricks Ensure your furry friend is safe this Halloween CHARLIE HOLDEN co-editor in chief

Every Halloween, dogs take to the streets in grand fashion: pirate dogs, Superdogs, fairy dogs, bumblebee dogs and pumpkin dogs all trot faithfully beside squealing children and doting parents, tugging at their leashes a little more than usual in hopes of tasty treat. Some dogs weave between the legs of their humans at Halloween parties while others howl in their backyards, overwhelmed at all of the pedestrians in strange clothes. Every Halloween, it’s the same question: what do we do with the dog?

Snickers (affectionately named because of his resemblance to a Snickers candy bar) was adopted by the Holden family in 2011. During Snickers’s puppy years, the answer to the dogon-Halloween-problem was obvious: quarantine him to his crate. When he grew up a little and learned how to socialize with humans and other dogs appropriately (we’ll call these his teenage years), we had the option to pop him in a hot dog costume and take him out to see the festivities.

We had the option, but once we considered Snickers’s spastic and nervous personality, we decided unanimously against it. Even now, as Snickers has moved past what could be called his midlife crisis and has developed a nasty case of arthritis in his back knees, he is far too rowdy for any sort of polyester sweater or elastic headpiece. Knowing perfectly well that costumes are not in my dog’s best interest, I usually don’t get much thought to them—usually.

Many, if not all dogs want to make their owners happy. They stick close to their “packs” and would follow us farther than many of our closest friends. They really like us, which could be part of the reason why lots of dogs have no problem with being dressed up like four-legged American Girl dolls. Most owners figure that if Fido isn’t complaining, then there isn’t anything

to be complaining about. That’s where the problem lies.

Snickers has knees that are quite arthritic as well as a weakening lower back. These things are uncommon in a dog his age, so when he first started showing symptoms my family and I didn’t really pay them any mind. It took us far longer than it should have to take him to the vet; we figured if he wasn’t showing us pain, he wasn’t experiencing any. One night, though, I changed my mind. I had been calling Snickers to come inside for a long time and started to pace around the house looking for him. Eventually I found him, curled up in a pile of leaves. He couldn’t get up. I carried him inside, and my mom scheduled a vet appointment for as soon as possible.

The vet, upon prescribing Snickers a little green bottle of pain medication, told my parents that dogs seldom make any obvious sign that they are in pain to their owners. If their knees are giving out from under them or if they’re overheating in a bumblebee costume, it’s the same. Your dog does not have a voice, and you cannot know what he knows. So before you buy that Pikachu costume for $9.99 off Amazon, think about what your pooch might not be telling you.

If you’re set on putting your dog into a costume this Halloween, that’s fine, but there are some guidelines to choosing an outfit that will keep them safe and comfortable: 1. Avoid costumes that get into your dog’s eyes: this can limit vision, and components of the costume can even scratch their eyes.

2. Supervise dressed up dogs, especially puppies. Small costume accessories can be choking hazards.

3. Dress them for the weather. If it’s going to be a warm Halloween, steer away from hot costumes. A costume on top of a fur coat can be too much for some dogs.

4. Make sure your dog can be mobile.

Costumes that restrict limb and head movement are uncomfortable, if not dangerous.

27 oct. 2017

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Time to ditch the hall pass At the beginning of the six weeks or semester, teachers pass out a syllabus, maybe a phone or tardy contract and then, for some, hall passes. These little colorful slips are possibly one of the most ridiculous policies that a teacher can have.

Almost always, students are limited to two per six weeks or semester and if they use them both, tough luck! You better hold it.

I’m a junior at McCallum and have been in many classes that have used hall passes and every time the teacher has offered points on a final in exchange for unused passes. What? How can that be allowed? In return for not using your right to go to the bathroom, they are going to reward you with points on the biggest test of the year.

With the stress that kids in high school are

New face reading camera replaces finger print I.D to unlock phone

faced with, people will take all the points they can get without effort. The right to go to the bathroom more than twice a semester, however, should not be able to determine whether or not you get a good grade on a final exam.

And yes, I am aware high schoolers are not the most trustworthy people when it comes to leaving the classroom. I have no doubt that many people who ask to go the bathroom aren’t actually going to the bathroom, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us should pay the price for their abuse of restroom rights.

I understand that teachers prefer having a way to restrict the number of times a student can go to the restroom if there is obviously an issue, but teachers

New cameras have studio-quality lighting effects and TrueDepth technoloogy

Only comes in two colors, silver and space gray

“Our vision has always been to create an iPhone that is entirely screen.”

-Apple’s website

The home button has been removed. To get to the home page, you need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen.

Durable glass back allows for wireless charging and is both water and dust resistant.

Storage capacity is 64GB or 256GB

The headphone jack is gone for good.

A look at the iPhone X The iPhone 8’s aesthetic hasn’t changed much from other, older models, but the iPhone X is a definite break from the mold.

27 oct. 2017

should handle such matters on a case-tocase basis.

History teacher Greg Anderson, has a good policy when it comes to bathroom breaks. He makes anyone who wants to go to the restroom leave their phone with him until they get back. I feel like this eliminates most of the possibilities of people going somewhere different than they say they are because if they are like most teenagers, they don’t want to leave their phone with a teacher for any longer than they have to.

Unfortunately, until all teachers switch to a fair policy that doesn’t limit student’s right to go to the restroom, I’ll be holding ... onto my passes.

—Zoë Hocker

It’s eXtra ordinary Many are excited for the release of the iPhone X today. It promises several new features and abilities never seen in a smartphone—but don’t forget about the iPhone 8. Released on Sept. 22, the iPhone 8 provides few changes to its predecessor, the iPhone 7. Usually, Apple comes out with a new number model providing big changes, and makes the little changes in the “S” models. The iPhone 8 has the minute changes that might better fit the title of iPhone 7s. The biggest physical change between the 7 and 8 is the 8’s glass back. That’s about it. Some of the smaller improvements include better screen quality, sharper photos and videos, an improvement on portrait mode and a weight of about half an ounce more. What’s the cost for all these new changes, you may ask? Well, it’s $699 for the Regular and $799 for the Plus. The big difference between the Regular and the Plus is that the Plus has two cameras, a wide angle and telephoto lens, as well as a slightly larger screen.

The biggest change for the iPhone 8 is the promise of wireless charging in 2018, which is a pretty major improvement. The wireless charger, called an “AirPower mat,” can be placed around airports or restaurants for convenient charging.

Apple did keep the charging port, though, so you can still charge your phone the traditional way.

The iPhone 8 also promises a much better screen and camera. Supposedly, the screen has “true tone technology,” which subtly adjusts the white balance to match the color temperature of the light around you, putting less strain on the eyes. It also claims to have “the best color accuracy in the industry.” The camera on the 8

Weigh your options before investing in the newest iPhones Plus has a new portrait lighting mode, which provides “real time studio lighting effects.”

The phone that has the big changes, though, is the iPhone X. The home button is now gone, the screen takes up the entire front of the phone, and that fingerprint ID unlock feature that never really works has been replaced with face ID. The future is now. This new phone is surely the next step in smartphone technology; the only drawback is that it costs $1,000. Even for Apple, that’s a bit expensive.

The iPhone 8 is not a bad phone; it just doesn’t have as many new features as new iPhone models have had in the past. Apple wanted to squeeze a new model in between the iPhone 7 and X, but it could have been released at a better time. For the last five years, the new iPhone has been released in September, one year apart from the previous release. The iPhone 8 follows that trend, but has seemingly few changes for a year’s worth of improvement time. Then, for the 10th anniversary of the first iPhone, the iPhone X is also being released this year, only a month after the 8. Because of this, the X is Apple’s main focus, and the 8 has not received the new fancy improvements it deserves.

So, is the iPhone 8 the way to go, or should you save your pennies for the iPhone X? Well, it depends. If you want a new phone that has familiar features, yet minor improvements, then go for the 8. But if you like many new features and new abilities, and have a few extra dollars, give the X a try.

—Max Rhodes

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Bond’s benefits outweigh rivalry A quarter century of athletic competition a small price to pay to make four schools better KELSEY TASCH staff reporter

The first McCallum football game I ever attended was versus our fiercest rival, Lyndon Baines Johnson High School. I had heard from a variety of people that the LBJ football game was one of the only ones worth attending, and so I went with that in mind.

Before my time at McCallum, I went to a very small private school with no sports teams, few after-school clubs and 12 people in my eighth-grade class. School pride was never a familiar practice for me. McCallum, in contrast, is very different.

As I pulled up to Nelson Field with countless other enthusiastic students, I was enveloped in a sense of pride and community. I was now a part of the river of McCallum’s blue and grey, and soon fell in with the roar of the student section. I witnessed the latest game of a 25-year rivalry. A game that, since 2004, has predicted what school will—at the very least—share a district title each season. A game that might be one of the last.

If passed, the 2017 Austin Independent School District bond plans to have the Liberal Arts Science Academy and Lyndon Baines Johnson Early College High School separate; LASA would move to what is now Eastside Memorial High School, with LBJ remaining where it currently is. Then, Eastside would have to relocate to what is now the Alternative Learning Center, causing a domino effect of campus relocations throughout the district.

Alone, LBJ would stand at approximately 850 students, and in UIL’s football terms, that means it would become a 4A school making them ineligible to play in the same district with McCallum, a 5A team. Losing our district rival of 25 years would be sad, but there are more than enough beneficial things to outweigh the loss of a rival.

LBJ would have the campus to itself, and with it, space to grow. A health professional school will be built on campus, starting a new a medical magnet program that will partner with Seton Hospital. Upon graduating, students will be prepared for their futures with a diploma, an associate’s degree in health sciences, applicable workplace experience and a guaranteed interview for post-secondary employment with one of Seton’s industry partners. The program will also allow students to preview and prepare for five different medical and health fields. After being trapped under LASA’s shadow for years and receiving little attention compared to their u p s t a i r s WILL TYREE neighbor, staff reporter t h e As a McCallum student and member of the Austin community, I have a strong opinion about LBJ and LASA moving. I dislike the fact that everything is being switched around in the AISD school district. I’m a fan of change, and I recognize that it can be a good thing, but I’m sad to lose the immense sporting rivalry between McCallum and LASA/LBJ. The rivalry moved us further as students, giving us an enemy to fight and pushing us to new heights in terms of athletic achievement and school spirit. I’m happy for LBJ that they might get new programs, and happy for LASA that they get to expand their student population. All of my life, LBJ and LASA have pretty much been in the same spot, as have the other schools that are being pushed around because of the move. This is a strange thought, having all these schools in a different spot than before, and while I can accept it, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. All this money could be spent on something else, and if what has worked before still works, why change anything?

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value of these additions to LBJ should not be understated. The added advantage of partnering with Seton Hospital would draw more students to LBJ, who would be enticed by these programs.

These additional college-level courses will apply real-life skills and learning geared towards future occupations in their high school classrooms. The courses aim to increase job opportunities for LBJ students when they come out of both high school and college.

There are, of course, some concerns with the coming AISD bond. People worry that separating LASA and LBJ will undo everything the district has done to desegregate the schools. But while LASA and LBJ have made progress—the two schools share electives, sports, band and clubs—the degree of progress doesn’t justify rejecting the latest AISD bond. Students from LASA and LBJ frequently go through their days without interacting. The true cause of the modern-day segregation occurred when LASA became it’s own school. It was originally two separate magnet programs: the Science Academy at LBJ and the Liberal Arts Academy at Johnston High School (now Eastside Memorial).

The stagnancy that comes with voting “no” is just about a death sentence for all of the schools affected. The split would impact many Austinites, even though who aren’t going to their home schools.

The Alternative Learning Center, according to AISD, is built on second chances: ALC enrolls at risk students and one fifth of their student body has limited English proficiency. The ALC, however,

is simply passed over in the AISD bond. The bond mentions no plans to where ALC will go next, what funding they will receive, or any specific changes it will undergo.

But, the ALC doesn’t need fundamental changes. For instance, Austin Learning Center doesn’t need much room to expand.

The school is built to help get students on their feet and back at their home schools—their student body shouldn’t be growing or planning to grow. Some other additions, like the restructuring of the school, would be welcomed.

The opportunities presented in the LBJ and LASA separation are powerful. They propose benefits to students, teachers and communities at four separate schools. This should not be downplayed solely because AISD has not finalized everything— the district seeks to repair decades of dilapidation and neglect.

This is just the first step in a significant process. If LASA and LBJ remain together, they will barely squeeze in that single campus and their problems won’t improve. Neither school will have room to grow, the lack of diversity would continue to be disputed, and the district would be at a standstill. That being said, there are still some missing pieces in the AISD bond and needs that must be met. Concerned citizens should continue to bring other issues to the district’s attention; don’t let your concerns go ignored, but at the same time, allow AISD to foster growth for both LASA and for LBJ. That starts with letting the schools separate.

LBJ High School entrance Photo by Atxmanuel / Creative Commons

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One size certainly does not fit all Navigating testing maze difficult for students with dyslexia, testing anxiety JULIE ROBERTSON co-editor in chief

I

sit in a crowded ACT test room at Anderson High School.

I’m wearing what every girl there is wearing. An oversized sweatshirt with an oversized T-shirt, athletic shorts and running shoes. I have my TI-84 Plus graphing calculator, with new batteries to my right, and three freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils to my left. I look confident on the outside. I’ve been going to ACT tutoring for several months, have done countless practice tests, have slept a full nine hours and have eaten a healthy breakfast.

I should feel confident on the inside, but I don’t. I feel a fresh wave of testing anxiety wash over me as the test proctor walks around with all of our testing booklets, riddling off rules of what to do and what not to do in the testing room. I mentally tell myself, “I got this, I’ve been practicing for this for months, and I’ve already taken this test before.” But honestly, I really do not feel like I got this. Unfortunately, for millions of similar dyslexia and test anxiety-ridden kids in America, this is the reality we face every time we have to take the ACT or SAT. I was diagnosed with dyslexia in first grade. My teacher noticed I was reading at a slower rate than the rest of the class. I was having a harder time understanding simple concepts that other kids were getting easily. This diagnosis put in motion a process that I have been battling my entire life. After second grade, I was moved to a private school where my grade included only 20 kids.

There were only five-to-10 students in each class. This was the environment that I needed at that point in my life.

I had a tutor that I went to every day in order to work on my sightreading and spelling skills. It took a lot of work but after two years of schooling in this tiny, isolated and individualized environment, I was ready to move to a larger school where everything was a bit less structured, but it was still a private school that offered one-on-one tutoring, just less often. I was doing well with the amazing teachers and a tutor that I saw twice a week for homework help.

Eighth grade came and went, and I headed to McCallum after being out of the public school system for six years. I had an older brother who was a senior to help me through freshman year, and thankfully my best friend was also going to McCallum, but the increased workload was a burden I was not ready to bear.

I was taking four Pre-AP classes as a freshman because I didn’t

27 oct. 2017

Did you know that October is Dyslexia Awareness Month? To raise awareness and dispel misconceptions about Dyslexia, Austin Learning Solutions compiled this list of facts about Dyslexia.

1. It is estimated that one in 10 people have dyslexia.

2. Einstein was dyslexic and had an estimated IQ of 160.

3. One fifth of U.S. school-aged children are dyslexic.

4. More than half of NASA employees are dyslexic.

5. People with dyslexia excel in the arts, sciences and sports.

SOURCES: American Dyslexia Association, The International Dyslexia Association, The Dyslexia Center, The Dyslexia Foundation, The Child Mind Institute.

know any better. I thought I would be able to adjust to high school rather easily, but unfortunately it was harder and took longer for me to make the transition. I had to learn my first couple of years of high school how to be an advocate for myself, something I never really had to do at a private school where everyone was in the same boat as me. Now in high school, I was in the minority.

Although many students have learning disabilities, most do not.

As junior year arrived, the idea of college came up more and more. My mom is ultra hands-on, not only making sure I am prepared for school, but also thinking about my college career, which was still 18 months away when she first brought it up.

Before she raised the subject, I didn’t think about it too much and tried to focus on my challenging junior year course load.

As the spring semester came around, my mom told me I needed to sign up for ACT tutoring sessions to prepare for the April test.

I begrudgingly agreed, knowing I would burn a lot of gas driving myself to north Austin two or three times a week for six weeks before the test, but I kept to the plan because after all, it’s all for my future, right?

As the big testing day approached, I told myself over and over again that this IS my future, and I need to focus on it and devote the extra 30 minutes of free time necessary to complete 25 extra reading problems or whatever section I was struggling with that week.

But I was exhausted for the last few months of junior year. I felt like I was one step behind everyone when it came to the ACT. Because of my dyslexia, it was taking me much longer to process a reading passage or to comprehend a science problem.

My tutor instructed me to just take five hours one Saturday and take a test all the way through. I locked myself in a room in my house put my phone away and powered through it. The ACT is graded on a

system from 0-36 for your composite score. My goal for the practice test was to get a 26. I got a 27. OK, I thought, this is awesome. If I can score that well at home, then I bet I am going to kill it once it comes to testing day. There’s only one problem: test anxiety.

Fast forward to testing day at Anderson. I’m so nervous my stomach is in knots. I try to tell myself over and over again that it really is OK to do poorly; I can always retake it. But talking myself down doesn’t work. I am so anxious, and I can’t help but think to myself that so many other people in here must be nervous too, right? I later found out that millions of kids in America have testing anxiety and dyslexia, but the emphasis on multiple-choice tests like the ACT and SAT is still just as high.

It is as if many college admissions offices just don’t know or don’t care that testing anxiety and testing disabilities are real issues that disproportionately affect some college-ready high school students. This mentality must change.

The truth for me is that my grades in high school have been good, but I’ve had to work incredibly hard for them to get there. Even though I have permission to leave campus for lunch, I do not. Instead, I go to my teachers’ classrooms and do countless rounds of test corrections or try to understand a concept that eluded me in class.

I wish I could show colleges a log of the amount of time I spend at school. I wish they would care more about the fact that I am an advocate for myself and constantly looking to better my grades and scores, instead of forming a first impression about me based on the number I post on the 0-36 ACT scale.

There have been some positive changes in the past couple of years. Colleges are emphasizing that they are taking a more wholesome approach to reviewing applications. This wholesome approach that colleges are touting, however, still starts with reviewing your test scores, which can either be a good first impression, or if you’re like me and suffer from dyslexia or testing anxiety, a bad one.

Another option would be to make test scores optional to send to schools. Small liberal art schools already make it optional for applicants to submit test scores, but students like me who are applying to large state schools and universities, still must send in their test scores, no exceptions.

But no matter the school’s size or its admissions policy, a score on a multiple-choice exam does not in any way reflect what we know and should never be the first thing that college sees when forming a first impression of a student applicant.

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Letting students know their voices matter Administration made the right choice to support freedom of speech, personal expression On Sept. 29, the usual House Park football game announcer came over the loudspeaker a couple of minutes before 7:30, asking for everyone—from the stands to the field—to remove their caps and face south for the usual playing of “The Star Spangled Banner” before the beginning one of the biggest football games of the year against LBJ. Most everyone did, as most everyone usually does, except for seven McCallum cheerleaders. Instead of facing south towards the flags, they dropped to one knee, instantly joining the #TakeAKnee movement, which has, over recent weeks, turned into a national issue.

The movement was originally started by Colin Kaepernick, and was intensified by President Donald Trump after he referred to the professional football players that participated in the kneeling as “sons of bitches” on Twitter.

The same week of the LBJ rivalry game, several other Texas high schools had players that touched shoulders, linked arms or took a knee during the anthem.

However, the administrative response from these schools was very different from the response from the McCallum administration. One high school in Houston kicked two football players off the team for taking a knee at their Friday night game, while the McCallum administration defended our cheer squad’s right to speak up and be active for what they believe in.

The cheerleaders taking a knee sent massive ripples through the community at large; the cheer squad’s protest was covered by KXAN, The Austin-American

shield staff

comic by Charlie Holden use, because the majority of high school students are not of the voting age yet. And although it was just the cheerleading squad taking a knee, many students and parents paid attention and watched them, which inspired people to think about how they can be politically active in times like these.

Sometimes it can seem as though we are not making a difference, no matter what we do, but by taking part in something as powerful as a national protest we can feel like we are participating in something bigger than ourselves.

It is a feeling that would not have been

possible had our administration prevented the free expression of student opinion.

These days, it is so important to be able to feel like you have the chance to speak freely, to take action and to stand up for what you believe in. Many adults dismiss the voices of teenagers as uneducated and unimportant, which is why our administration’s response is so refreshing.

Letting those who are not yet of voting age know that their voices are valuable in the complicated social and political spheres of the ‘real world’ is not just important; it is essential.

A.N. McCallum High School 5600 Sunshine Drive Austin, TX 78756 (512) 414-7539 fax (512) 453-2599 contact.macshield@gmail.com

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Statesman, and even went on to be featured in an online story in a London newspaper, The Independent. Even though our administration was not exactly welcoming the attention, one thing that cannot be denied is how well they handled the affair.

The support of adults, teachers and faculty especially, is what students need in times like this, when being politically active can be so frowned upon. The fact that our principal, Mike Garrison, and our cheerleading sponsor, Chastity Colbert, chose to allow the cheer squad to take a knee, citing that there were no district rules against it, is a vote of encouragement for students to stand up for what we believe in during this time of political strife.

Younger generations are often accused by those older than us of being too indifferent, of turning our backs on politics and current events. They complain that we are more concerned with our phones and various social media networks than the things that “really matter.” When we decide to take a stand, however, they say that we are “uneducated” or that we “do not know what we are talking about.” There is no winning this game. But now that we have a president who is involving himself in practically everything that he disagrees with, no one can say anything about high school students not knowing what we are talking about.

By allowing students to take part in the #TakeAKnee movement, the McCallum administration is letting us use a voice that we might otherwise not be able to

editors-in-chief CHARLIE HOLDEN AND JULIE ROBERTSON assistant editors ANNA COMPTON

MADDIE DORAN

ZOE HOCKER

MADISON OLSEN

SOPHIE RYLAND

adviser DAVE WINTER

reporters EMMA BAUMGARDNER, JOSEPH CARDENAS, GREG JAMES, MAX RHODES, ABIGAIL SALAZAR, KELSEY TASCH, STEVEN TIBBETS, WILL TYREE The Shield is published by journalism students in the newspaper production class. Although students work under the guidance of a professional faculty member, the student staff ultimately determines the content.

Students may not publish material that is obscene, libelous or that which will cause a “substantial disruption to the edu-

26 opinion

cational process.” Content that may stimulate heated debate is not included in this definition.

The Shield operates as an open forum for exchange of ideas. Opinions expressed in editorials are the ideas of the staff. Opinions expressed in the columns are that of the writer’s alone.

Letters to the editor are encouraged

and must be signed. Positive identification may be required when a letter is submitted. Letters may be edited. Letters that are critical of the newspaper staff’s coverage of events or that present information that may stimulate heated debate will be published.

Letters that contain malicious attacks on individual reporters, the adviser or the prin-

cipal will be rejected.

Anyone interested in purchasing an ad should contact adviser Dave Winter at (512) 414-7539. The Shield is a member of the Interscholastic League Press Conference, the National Scholastic Press Association the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the Southern Interscholastic Press Association.

27 oct. 2017

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Photo by Annabel Winter

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Fall dance concert blends tradition, innovation

Photo by Gregory James

Pink Week brings in the green again Mac keeps the bell in resounding fashion

Photo

by Madison Olsen

Austin Pets Alive help pets affected by Hurricane Harvey 27 oct. 2017

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Pink Week brings in the green

Despite Monday holiday, Wednesday PSAT, PALS raise more than $750 to combat breast cancer Reaching for a launched water balloon, Anna McGuire, Jasmine Skloss-Harrison and Abraham Dietz collide during the PALlery on Thursday. “It felt like I was part of a community in a way I haven’t felt before at McCallum,” Skloss-Harrison said. Photo by Madison Olsen.

A n n a M c G u i r e p l a ce s a donation in the collection tin Thursday during lunch. The PALs aimed to raise $1,000 from Pink Week to benefit the Breast Cancer Resource Center, which provides support to those who are affected by breast cancer. Photo by Jazzabelle Davishines.

Members of the Blue Brigade raise their pom poms as they lead the crowd in a chant before the pep rally begins.

Photo by Joseph Cardenas.

Charlie Holden laughs as Dave Winter joins the other Mac teachers who were pied in the face during Friday’s pep rally. “[Mr. Winter] is my newspaper adviser, so I spend an insane amount of time in the newspaper room joking with him,” Holden said. Photo

by Gregory James.

28 photo essay

Marc Lopez takes a shot during the 3-point basketball shootout during lunch Wednesday. “I played because my cousin had cancer, so I try to help in any way I can to raise money for a good cause.”

Photo by Laszlo King-Hovis.

During the first day of Pink Week, Piper Wiest and Ting Goodfriend made and sold tie-dyed shirts and socks. “In Mr. Cowles’ class, we came up with activities, like TieDye, fingernail painting and making trinkets to raise money for breast cancer awareness,” Goodfriend said. “It was really fun to work with everyone and come together to help a cause.”

Photo by Anna Compton.

Physics teacher Nick Bisbee smiles as junior Savannah Riddles puts pink powder all over his face. “Bisbee wanted his face painted for Pink Week,” Riddles said, “but he wouldn’t stay still and he kept smearing paint all over himself and the whole thing was a mess.”

Photo by Gregory James.

27 oct. 2017