An unspoken requirement

“One of the largest issues with block scheduling during the 20202021 school year was unpreparedness.”

One of the largest issues with block scheduling during the 20202021 school year was unpreparedness. Most of my peers who prefer block scheduling have not taken into consideration the fact that teachers would have activities planned for the entire block, not just the same length of a normal schedule’s period. The amount of freetime was unique to the covid school years, not block schedule. Teachers will have material planned for the full 90 minutes instead of working with their plans from the 8-period schedule that they were used to. Although this does not make block schedule inherently ineffective, it means next year we will have a very different experience with it in comparison to the laid-back version during covid.

Despite being a major asset to classes that require a lot of hands-on activities and group work, like music and art classes, the thought of spending 90 minutes in any other class seems completely unfavorable. Not only is it great to get up, walk around the school and see your friends in between classes, but core classes like math and science may struggle. If I only had math lessons three times a week, I wouldn’t have the same understanding that I do from having math class every day.

As someone who is involved in many extracurricular activities, I can definitely see block schedule being a benefit workload-wise. Only seeing a particular class every other day means that you get an additional day to get that class’ work done. Although everyone is unaware of how block schedule will be run post-covid, I can imagine a lot of teachers would assign more work since students have more time. The workload will increase in respect to the time given. Overall, I feel that not seeing all classes everyday will have a negative impact on learning as a whole, despite the time increase.

As we began our reporting on the course fee bill, as well as special needs funding, we began to ask ourselves about the pros and cons. Con: The bill could potentially allow for less labs and projects in certain science and art courses. Pro: The bill recognizes students who struggle with covering costs.

It is this particular pro that led us to ask ourselves questions separate from what the bill itself covers, and it led to our opinion backtalk question: are clubs and sports too expensive? The House and Senate Bills do not pertain to extracurricular activities, but it posed that particular question for us. We looked around the room, asking staffers about their individ- our take Students should have access to all resources, especially extracurriculars ual costs: how much does each extracurricular cost or sport cost? As we closely looked at the prices, ranging from small to large, we quickly realized these prices add up. $200 for pre-season debate. $210 for postseason debate. $18 for HOSA. Nearly $1,000 for dance. $50 for theatre.

This became especially important as a total of eight points in clubs or other outside activities are required in order to graduate—not to mention the unspoken requirements needed for further education.

According to Mrs. Rebecca McKeever, bookkeeper, a club’s fees are determined by that individual club based on

Opinion Backtalk

what is your opinion of club or sports fees?

I think they are well priced because the expenses make sense due to all the experiences there are within the sport or club.” ruby smith freshman

“

I think you can’t expect everything to come out of the club leader’s pockets, but some shouldn’t be as expensive.” ava adam sophomore

A step towards walkability

Google Maps calculates the two milewalk from MHS to Fitness Pointe to take 40 minutes. However, anyone who lives in Munster can tell you that it is not feasible to walk. If you put time it takes to walk aside, you would still be left hobbling through grass due to the sidewalk expenses. We would like to see these numbers go down, rather than assuming all students in Munster have the opportunity to pay these fees.

Crier, Munster High School’s official student newspaper, may be reached via mail at 8808 Columbia Ave, Munster, IN 46321 or at (219) 836-3200, ext. 3443. Crier is published through the Advanced Student Media: Newspaper classes and extra-curricular involvement. Crier’s official website is mhsnews.net.

•The newspaper serves as a public forum and two-way communication for the school and community. •Published material will stress objective reporting except on the opinion page. All published material will stress accuracy, integrity, honesty, responsibility, objectivity, fairness and independence. Corrections, when necessary, will be published on page 2.

•Opinions expressed in the newspaper do not necessarily reflect those of the School Town of Munster, faculty or administration. All content is decided and produced solely by Crier staff.

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A course fee for a low-maintenance club may not be much, such as French Club or Cultural Cuisine Club, but the points received reflect that—most would only receive around one or two. Clubs that receive eight points, such as Speech and Debate or a particular varsity sport, are much costlier.

One of Utah State’s surveys conducted in 2016 found that the average family spends $2,292 per year on sports. Students face an inherent disadvantage when it comes to joining extracurriculars. Especially with colleges, these clubs can make or break an application. Students unable to access them face further harm in their academic life.

As long as its reasonable I am willing to pay a fee, but I still feel that a large part of funding should come from the school.” randomly stopping in front of Centennial Village. Though this is no issue to anyone who owns an automobile, it remains an issue for kids and anyone else who has no other choice but to walk.

At first glance, this only appears to be a nuisance and nothing more. Why walk or bike when you could drive? But the solution to this minor problem could benefit you: walkability. Take the college town Bloomington. The town has a two-way bike path on busy streets for residents and free public transit for students. A study done by Arup, a group of engineers dedicated to worldwide sustainability, showed that walkabili- our staff

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Editor-in-Chief Reena Alsakaji

Design Chief Josephine Mittelberger

Story Editor Lauren Hoogeveen

“Every student should have to cover their own costs, but if they’re over charging, a fund should be built up.” jack fugger senior ty within towns and cities can majorly improve your personal health. People who are aged 60 or older decrease their chances of an earlier death by 22% if they walk for 15 minutes a day.

Walkability has also proven useful for the environment, as it lowers carbon emissions and reduces air pollution. Cars are not accessible to everybody and are becoming even harder to obtain. Simply adding sidewalks or bike lanes can make life easier for pedestrians and might encourage people to exercise more. These changes will take time, but they will actually give people the opportunity to walk around Munster.

Photography Trainer Marianna Young

Page Editors Seamus Keegan, Dorothy Lakshmanamurthy, Emily Dywan

Photographers Zoe Clark, Ethan Pischner, Marianna Young, Connor McDonald, Josephine Zangrilli, Lexi Villalobos

Business Manager Josephine Mittelberger

Cartoonist Damien Salahieh

Adviser Ms. Sarah-Anne Lanman