January Special V94

The Newtonite Friday, Jan. 22, 2016 • Volume 94

Newton North High School, 457 Walnut St., Newtonville, Mass. 02460

Students, faculty debate library use

Maya Abou-Rizk Housing hundreds of books, over two dozen computers, classrooms for independent work, and multiple printers, the Library Learning Commons (LLC) serves as an ideal area for students to study, to work on individual or group projects, and to collaborate on research or other assignments.

However, students have expressed discontent regarding the library’s limited hours of operation—7:30 a.m. until school ends.

Students who arrive to school early, wait for the bus after school, or have sports practices that do not start until one or two hours after the school day ends think the LLC is not completely fulfilling its purpose, according to interim vice principal Amy Winston.

The administrators have recognized these complaints and, as of this week, have extended the library’s hours until 4:20 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Winston said these complaints stem from members of the school community often confusing the LLC program with its space.

The LLC program’s purpose is to support students and their learning through research and help with work in their classes. “That support is what the librarians are responsible for. Their job, like the other teachers at the school, is to be here during the [school] day,” said Winston.

Senior Alexa Gershkowitz, captain of the dance team, said that the library should be open until all students’ sports practices start. “All our practices start at 4:15 p.m., and I think there should be somewhere for us to go finish homework until then,” she said. Students are not permitted to work in the hallways, on Main Street, or any of the open spaces in the building because of the lack of supervision.

Sophomore Liz Reikine, a member of the girls’ diving team, said that the few times she went after school to go to the library, it had closed “fairly early, maybe an hour after school had ended.” However, because her diving practice started at 5 p.m. every day, “I ended up not being able to rely on the library as a place to get my work done, which should be what it’s for,” she said.

Students without access to printers or computers at home also said that the school library is not completely fulfilling its purpose.

Senior Nicole Algarin, who does not have printer access at home, said that utilizing the public library for

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printing her assignments is not ideal.

“There are people who go to North that need these computers and printers. The Newton Free Library charges for the computer and printing paper, and sometimes I don’t even have the money for that, and I work. Imagine students who don’t work and whose parents don’t make enough money,” she said.

When asked about these students using the LLC for completing and printing assignments, librarian Annette Tate said, “The library is a teaching facility and not a public library. Our system does its best to accommodate for those students, and it’s definitely not enough, but at the same time it is not the responsibility of this space and program to do so when there is a public library down the street.”

Pilot program counselor Susan Mucci and counselor Jerry Etienne will staff the LLC in its new, extended afterschool hours.

“The space will be open but that doesn’t mean that there will be librarians there to help students with library functions,” Winston said. “We are looking to see how many students are using [the LLC], how it is being used, and if we can use the space in an appropriate way. We don’t want it to be a used as a ‘hang-out’ space but rather a space for kids to work on group projects.”

In order to learn more from other schools’ libraries, Newton Public Schools library coordinator Chris Swerling will be responsible for finding out how different schools use their libraries, programs, and supports.

Winston said, “We are hoping that the information she brings back will help us think more proactively about some things we want to do and how we can expand our current program. For example, do we want to hire a librarian after school to help our students?

Is that a way that we want to use our space and our resources?”

Winston’s overriding concern is that there is not enough supervision and administrators on duty to handle the possible “abuse of the space” after school hours are over.

She said that the North community should also be mindful and respectful when thinking about further options.

“I understand the librarians’ concern for the books, computers, and other resources in the library because if any of it gets destroyed there’s no money to replace it. So, we have to really think thoughtfully about how we are going to use, but also preserve, this space.”

Devin Perlo

Juniors Amanda Powers, Adela Miller, and Izzy Tils do homework together in the Library Learning Commons Tuesday, Jan. 19.

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Members of Jubilee Singers perform at North’s annual holiday concert Tuesday, Dec. 22.

State officials to blend MCAS, PARCC in disputed ‘MCAS 2.0’ Emily Moss In November, the Massachusetts Board of Education voted to change the course of standardized testing with a new assessment, unofficially known as “MCAS 2.0,” which will eventually become a requirement at North and at schools across the state. Even before the new test has received an official name, however, it has provoked significant controversy.

The change comes less than a year after Massachusetts piloted another test—created by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)—in grades K-8. MCAS 2.0 will draw on both PARCC and the original MCAS, which was first introduced in 1998.

Critics of MCAS 2.0 have raised a number of concerns. Even apart from the substance of the proposed assessment, many dislike the prospect of still more uncertainty and tumult in the state’s testing regimen.

Literacy specialist Kalpana Guttman, who coordinated PARCC testing at Burr Elementary School last year, said, “Students were guinea pigs for PARCC, and we’re worried that they will be once again for MCAS 2.0.” She added that implementing the new test so quickly is “like putting a car on the road without taking it for a test drive.”

Critics disagree about the best alternative, with some calling for a return to the original MCAS and others urging that PARCC be fully implemented.

Supporters of MCAS 2.0, meanwhile, say that the shift will allow state officials to incorporate the strongest elements of the PARCC test, the product of a national consortium, while also giving them the flexibility to tailor assessments as needed to Massachusetts students and permitting them to maintain overall control of the process. In the by

words of Massachusetts secretary of education James Peyser, quoted in the Boston Globe, MCAS 2.0 will allow the state to draw “on the best of both PARCC and MCAS, while ensuring that Massachusetts is able to control its own destiny.”

Logistics of MCAS 2.0

MCAS 2.0 will take effect in grades K-8 as early as next year, according to Massachusetts Department of Education assistant chief of staff Lauren Greene. However, the test will not be implemented as quickly at the high school level—the test will not be a graduation requirement until the Class of 2020; however, it is unclear when the class will take the exam. Once implemented, MCAS 2.0 will likely replace the original MCAS test as a graduation requirement, according to superintendent David Fleishman.

Fleishman said he expects the test to be more difficult than the original MCAS, placing greater emphasis on critical and creative thinking.

Fleishman noted, moreover, that the decision to retain state control over standardized testing may also in part have been a response to the controversy over PARCC. “There is growing criticism of testing, and PARCC is symbolic of a national test,” said Fleishman. “What can appear confusing about MCAS 2.0 is that we are told that most of the questions will be similar to PARCC, but the state does not want to call the test PARCC.”

PARCC versus MCAS

The state’s decision to switch to MCAS 2.0 appears to have reinvigorated existing debates regarding PARCC versus MCAS. One of the few points that most people involved in the debate agree on is that PARCC is a tougher test.

According to the Boston Globe, “results from last year’s pilot demonstrated that students found the PARCC exams significantly more difficult than the MCAS tests.” Beyond that, there is little agreement about the two tests and especially about which test better serves the students of Massachusetts.

Although results from the two tests are not strictly comparable, they are broadly consistent with the Boston Globe’s claim. According to data presented by the MCAS chief analyst and acting PARCC director Robert Lee, approximately eight percent fewer Massachusetts students in grades K-8 “met expectations” on PARCC than reached at least “proficient” on MCAS. The same data showed that in voluntary high school pilot tests, only 39 percent of students were labeled “college and career ready” on the PARCC English Language Arts (ELA) test as compared to 91 percent who reached at least “proficient” on the MCAS ELA test.

Still, supporters of PARCC see it as the most advanced assessment of its kind. PARCC chief of assessment Jeff Nellhaus, who previously played a key role in designing MCAS, declared, “MCAS was the best 20th century test. PARCC is the best 21st century test.”

As an example of PARCC’s superiority, Nellhaus argued that its emphasis on using evidence to support a claim, particularly on the ELA assessment, aligns more closely with the skills that students need to succeed in college.

“You don’t write an essay off the top of your head in college,” said Nellhaus. In PARCC, “students are asked to read multiple texts and then draw evidence from them to write an extended argument or informational piece.” ◆ continued on page 11

opinion

2 ◆ The Newtonite, Newton North

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Unconscious sexism limits risk, success

Gender equality has come a long way nationwide since women achieved the right to vote. As a result, blatantly sexist actions are losing public acceptance. Rapper TI felt the need to apologize for his comments that a woman could not be president because she would make “rash emotional decisions.” Sexist statements in presidential debates and in major news forums are openly decried.

editorial Despite this progress made, men and women still lack complete equality.

Everyone is at least somewhat sexist, whether they realize it or not. According to a set of implicit bias exams designed by Harvard University, U. Washington, and U. Virginia, both women and men take longer to associate words like science and laboratory with photos of women than with photos of men.

Feminism has long had widespread support in Newton, generally considered a progressive community and a stronghold of liberal values. At this school in particular, support has manifested as three clubs and a day of awareness and presentations.

This special’s centerfold addresses the issue of gender equity at North.

Despite this nominal support, Newton is not immune to this implicit bias.

Boys tease each other for doing something “like a girl,” people “bitch” about a long day, and daring or confident actions are described as “ballsy.”

This vocabulary comes naturally to most, and little thought is given to the underlying sexism.

Doing something “like a girl” suggests that women can only be worse than men. Referring to complaining as “bitching” implies that complaining is a feminine act and typically only performed by women. Using “ballsy” relates males to bravery, and therefore females to cowardice.

These gender-based associations limit both men and women to stereotypical definitions of femininity and masculinity.

However, the greatest effect of these thoughtless statements is that they inhibit people’s desire to take risks. For men, failure would contradict and undermine their masculinity. For women, failure would confirm the stereotype of femininity as a synonym for weakness and cowardice.

This pressure to opt only for guaranteed successes so as to avoid failure could discourage females from taking an engineering class, for instance, in which they would be a part of a distinct minority. It could also discourage males from taking a child development class, where they would also be in a similar minority situation.

Minimizing this stigma surrounding risk taking and failure would begin a trend of redefining femininity and masculinity and reducing the compartmentalizing nature of stereotypes.

The first step toward freeing men and women from confining stereotypes is eliminating sexist language from everyday speech.

The Newtonite The Newtonite, founded in 1922, is the news source of Newton North High School, 457 Walnut St., Newtonville, Mass. 02460.

Editors in chief — Camille Bowman, Maxwell Kozlov Managing editor — Jessica Tharaud News director — Jacob Sims Speyer News editors — Jackie Gong, Cate Waters Sports director — Adam Rabinowitz Sports editors — Blake Krantz, Andrew Mannix Arts editors — Rose Bostwick, Amy Morrill Features director — Emily Moss Features editors — Maya AbouRizk, Maya Metser Opinion/Blogs editors — Adam Clements, Isabel Joyce

On Campus editor — Lucy Lu Talk of the Tiger editor — Nour Chahboun Photography managers — Devin Perlo, Josh Shub-Seltzer Graphics managers — Valeria Dountcheva, Maria Trias Advertising manager — Astrid Kugener Business manager — Rachel Adamsky Technology manager — Michael Tang Advisers — Tom Fabian, Derek Knapp, Amanda Mazzola Blogs staff — Jacob Gurvis Photo staff — Teddy Everett Talk of the Tiger staff — Maria Melissa, Mary Solovyeva

The Newtonite staff does all its reporting and photography to post content daily to its website, theNewtonite.com. Student editors make all content choices.

Letters The Newtonite serves as a designated forum for student opinion.

Readers are invited to submit guest articles and letters to the editor.

Letters should be put in The Newtonite box in the main office or emailed to thenewtonite@gmail.com.

The Newtonite reserves the right to edit all letters, which must have the writer’s name and a student’s class and homeroom.

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Sixth Man: Seniors support boys’ basketball in a 75-58 win against Framingham Friday, Jan.8.

Posters divide students, create concern

by Isabel

Joyce Crass and sexist comments written anonymously in the boys’ bathroom as part of a Feminism Club experiment began an important conversation about gender equality and sexism at North.

column In October, Feminism Club hung up posters with questions, such as, “What do you think is the role of women in society? What do you think of when you hear the words ‘gender equality’? How have you experienced sexism in this school?” in the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms throughout the school with pens attached to the walls. The results were mostly profane comments written on the boys’ bathroom posters and mostly sincere comments written on the girls’ bathroom posters.

After she saw the posters, senior Naomi Forman-Katz, an officer of Feminism Club, posted the results of the experiment on Facebook.

Students voiced their opinions on the comment section. Negative comments were generally directed at either one of two groups: stereotyped feminists who were taking the experiment too seriously, or students who were not taking the experiment

seriously enough.

Perhaps the students who believe the comments on the posters should not be taken to heart have a point.

The phrasing of the first question was searching for one particular kind of answer. As a female student, if asked about the role of women in society, I would answer that it depends on the person. In a boys’ bathroom, perhaps there were a couple of boys who thought they were being funny by scrawling vulgar words across the posters.

Even so, it is “dangerous to chalk it up to boys kidding around,” said Forman-Katz. The question is difficult to answer for the everyday feminist, but easy for the careless and sexist student. The question might only attract those with misogynistic mindsets to write on the posters.

Students have spoken out against the Feminism Club posters by arguing that the pointing of fingers at the majority of the male student population at North defeats the point of gender equality. While addressing a relevant gender equality issue, it is difficult to not let the hurtful and degrading comments cloud the topic the North community would like to discuss. Voicing opinions on gender equality can sometimes get confused with believing women are better than men, or that all men are evil, which

is not the goal. Forman-Katz herself stepped back to take a critical look at how she and Feminism Club should respond to the crass comments written in the boys’ bathroom. “We all agreed we didn’t want to alienate anyone or blame anyone based on gender, and we wanted to stay outwardly calm regardless of how upset we were,” she said.

The posters and the conversations that arose from the posters should not divide students at North, but bring students together by uniting both male and female students in the effort to take steps to eliminate sexism. Unfortunately, the strongly opinionated responses have yielded results in which male students tend to feel as if the entire male student population is being targeted and vice versa for the female student population, which leads to defensive comments instead of plans for gender equality.

Even though the experiment was not perfect and may have reinforced negative stereotypes, the posters ultimately brought awareness to an important issue that needs to be addressed. Although the discussion of the posters will not fix the issue of gender equality, by posting the pictures on Facebook, Feminism Club sparked a much needed conversation about relevant issues here at North.

Everybody should embrace feminism Adam Clements Most of us can agree that men and women should have equal rights.

This belief is, in essence, feminism.

However, the word “feminism” itself has been stigmatized to the point where it often carries negative connotations, particularly among males.

According to a 2013 HuffPost/ YouGov poll, 82 percent of U.S. men believe that women and men should be social, political, and economic equals. The same poll, however, found that only 16 percent of men identified as feminists. Why is there such a drastic difference?

The existence of sexism in our society is made clear simply by this widespread fear of feminism among men. Eliminating this fear would be a powerful step forward for the feminist cause, and it can be done if more men are willing to openly call themselves feminists.

It seems that the most common reason for men, and many women as well, refusing to identify as feminists is widespread confusion about what exactly the word entails. Even among the most liberal and progressive of men, the misconception that

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feminism is about female superiority over men is still prevalent.

In more extreme examples, feminism is openly condemned in a manner that is blatantly sexist, and this action is treated as being largely acceptable. For example, right-wing political commentator Rush Limbaugh has made statements like “feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.”

column In less offensive instances, being a feminist is often associated with being feminine altogether, or being more “in touch with your feminine side.” This belief does not need to be the case. Supporting feminism has no correlation with being feminine, and the movement does not aim to take away anyone’s perception of manhood. It simply makes “traditional masculinity” more of a choice and less of an expectation than it already is.

Even beyond the strong reasoning of supporting equality for women,

feminist successes can be beneficial to men as well. In an equal society, expectations are lifted off of the shoulders of men to fill certain roles.

An easy and powerful way to start is simply to be comfortable and confident in saying the phrase, “I am a feminist.” This statement does not necessarily mean going to Feminism Club meetings every week or attending protests in your spare time. It’s simply a first step, one that decreases sexism in our society on its own.

In a society where being a feminist does not cast someone as a minority, where there is less fear of gender equality, it would become much easier to take further steps towards this goal. Men can and should do much more to promote equal rights for women beyond simply associating with a word.

Being a male feminist is important because it shows solidarity with women and the cause to make them equals in our society. When more men openly support feminism, the movement loses the negative stigma attached to it and is able to make far more significant progress.

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Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Newton North, The Newtonite ◆ 3

ACL injuries, concussions increase in female athletes

by Blake Krantz and Adam Rabinowitz With the fall sports season over and the winter season underway, it is apparent that injuries have become increasingly common in sports at this school, especially on girls’ teams. Throughout the fall alone, teams such as girls’ volleyball and girls’ soccer have sustained injuries during games and practices, often not because of collisions. Players are seen on crutches or wearing braces in the hallways, waiting for their time to return to the playing field after what could easily be their second or third head or knee injury. Several girls at this school tore their ACLs, and several more were diagnosed with concussions this year and last, exemplifying the national injury problem in female high-school sports.

About 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports annually, according to Stanford Children’s Hospital, and more than 3.5 million injuries occur each year. On a smaller scale, the increase is seen in towns and cities such as Newton.

This trend was confirmed by the United States National Library of Medicine for concussions in particular, which stated that sports are now second only to car accidents as the leading cause of traumatic brain injury for people 15 to 24 years old, with an estimated 300,000 sportsrelated brain injuries annually. This age group consists of the students at this school, only substantiating the relevance of the problem to North’s sports teams.

ACLs

“I know so many girls who have torn their ACLs,” said junior Ava Waitz, a member of the girls’ soccer team. “I have seen it happen twice on the field.”

The ACL is the center of rotation in the knee, and, as North athletic trainer Bill McAndrews explained, “it’s the ligament that supports the knee every time you turn it and twist, and all the stress goes on that ligament. So sometimes when there is too much stress, it will cause that ligament to give.”

Females are two to 10 times more likely than males to suffer a knee ligament injury when jumping or pivoting, according to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. This trend has been reflected in girls’ sports at this school during the fall and early winter.

Waitz tore her ACL for the sec-

ond time last spring and is currently nearing the end of a nine-month rehabilitation program so she can return to playing soccer.

Waitz first tore her ACL as a freshman in a collision with an opposing player, but her recent injury was a non-contact tear, which often occurs by simply landing or changing direction awkwardly when playing.

Senior Samantha Tambascia tore her ACL through a non-contact tear last year while playing volleyball. Tambascia said, “I jumped up and when I came down my knee cracked and caved in, and I fell down.”

McAndrews explained that girls are more prone to ACL tears due to “the way their hips are formed.

Their hips are wider, forming something called a V-angle,” he said, which “then causes the stress on the ligament because there’s an extra pull on it.”

Approximately 80 percent of ACL tears are non-contact injuries, according to Modern Medicine Network, as “girls tend to rely on bones and ligaments to stop joint motion, rather than contracting their muscles to control joint position and absorb the landing forces” that occur when playing. According to McAndrews, a lack of emphasis on strength training in girls’ sports leads to a smaller and weaker muscle mass, exacerbating this difference.

However, many believe these incidents are not the only factors that have led to the ubiquity of high school sports injuries. English teacher Alicia Carrillo, girls’ varsity soccer coach, said that girls’ likelihood of being sidelined often increases before they step on the field.

Carrillo explained that high school sports are not “scheduled in a way that is conducive to rest and recovery,” with two to three games weekly for both girls’ and boys’ teams. According to Carrillo, this number is significantly higher than the recommended one game per week that maximizes recuperation and health for the body.

For these reasons, Carrillo said she purposefully did not schedule out of league games for the girls’ soccer team this season on top of the standard 16 games, as many coaches do.

After these injuries occur, athletes must undergo physical therapy and rehabilitation workouts that are not only time-consuming and difficult, but also take away from these

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Eyes on the prize: Senior Katie Daniels, who suffered a concussion this season, dribbles downfield during a girls’ soccer game against Brookline, Monday, Sept. 21. students’ daily routine at school or home.

According to Tambascia, after an ACL tear, an athlete undergoes surgery two months after the injury on the knee. As Waitz explained, the athlete is generally on crutches for roughly a month and is allowed to run about two months after.

Tambascia also stressed the importance of attending physical therapy for those who tear their ACL. “You should do physical therapy religiously, like everyday, because it helps so much. I didn’t go for one week, and I felt awful and could barely bend my knee. Also, you have to really want it. You have to put the effort in to get the results,” she said.

Waitz emphasized the importance of slowly recovering over time, which helps to re-strengthen the knee and regain its ability to undergo the movements and stresses of competitive games.

“At around six months you can do lateral motion training, and then you can get cleared to go back into a contact sport. [The doctor] told me it’s fixed once you have surgery, but the only problem is that you have to build up your muscle mass again,” she said, especially after the average athlete loses up to 40 percent of her quadriceps muscles during the recovery process.

The mental strain of the recovery process and the lack of physical ability during recovery is also difficult to overcome.

Sophomore Julia MacDonald tore her ACL playing soccer in April of eighth grade, and she emphasized the challenge of recovery as well.

As MacDonald put it, “It’s easy to go out there and run. Picking up the ball and playing wasn’t hard for me, but understanding that I wouldn’t be as good as I used to be was very hard for me, and trying to cope with that was difficult, and I didn’t understand that at first.”

Tambascia also noted that recovery was hard, particularly in the first week, as she was not able to do normal physical activities like swimming, hiking, or yoga. She added, “You get a machine and you put your leg on it and it just bends your knee at a certain angle for six hours a day, and that’s all you do for the first week.”

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Ready to bump: Junior Liana Reilly, who suffered a concussion last September, prepares to bump the ball Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Concussions

In addition to knee injuries,

concussions are common on girls’ sports teams, with an increasing number of players missing games and practices due to varying diagnoses.

Research by the American Journal of Sports Medicine found a 15 percent annual increase in concussion frequency in high school sports over the past 11 years.

According to Carrillo, concussions may not be occurring more often in games or practices for highschool sports teams; rather, due to increased national awareness recently, they may simply be diagnosed more often.

Carrillo explained that “things that may have gone undiagnosed before are now paid attention to.”

According to McAndrews, concussion detection and recovery policies have not changed so much themselves in the last 20 years; rather, concussions are being given more attention recently, as if “they just all of a sudden showed up or were invented.”

Junior Liana Reilly suffered a concussion in September at a girls’ volleyball tournament, when she was hit in the back of the head on a serve by a teammate.

For Reilly, it was difficult to recognize her concussion at first or even think to go see a doctor, and she was hit three times over the course of a week in practice before finally being sidelined for several weeks.

“You have to go home after school and rest, because if you do too much mental work or homework you won’t get better. I just slept a lot and didn’t do too much schoolwork, and I didn’t go to practice or games or anything because it’s too loud and too bright,” she said.

Senior Katie Daniel also suffered a concussion playing soccer last year. Daniel explained, “I was going up for a header, and one other player came up from behind me and her head hit the back of my head. Her head split open so there was a lot of blood.”

Daniel said she “didn’t immediately remember” what occurred after the game in which she sustained her first concussion, and balancing schoolwork and recovery became more difficult. During recovery, Daniel added that her inability to play for roughly a month and a half which included several trips to the doctor, was frustrating.

Preventative measures

There may be solutions to combat the frequency of these injuries that can be implemented moving forward.

Injury prevention can often be accomplished before athletes start the season. An increased emphasis on weight training in girls’ sports could decrease the likelihood of injuries, according to McAndrews.

As he put it, “it’s more of a culture for boys to go into the weight room and lift,” adding that it is important to begin to “change the mentality, get girls into the weight room, and get them to lift and do more resistance training.”

For concussions, this lack of strength training for female athletes leads to weaker neck muscles, which subsequently weakens the stabilizing force of the neck that traditionally holds the head in place to counteract unnecessary and potentially harmful motion, according to McAndrews. This balance, he said, can be better maintained with stronger neck muscles, which is a result of weight lifting.

Knee injuries may have similar solutions. MacDonald said the most important thing female athletes can do as it relates to knee injuries is to “learn how to strengthen parts of their legs” to the best of their abilities.

Logically, injury prevention and knee strengthening training is difficult to accomplish during the season, leading Carrillo to believe many girls’ injuries occur largely due to the fact that they “don’t prepare themselves physically before the season.” A study conducted by Timothy E. Hewett of the American Journal of Sports Medicine claims that “untrained female athletes had a 3.6 times higher incidence of knee injury than trained female athletes” who had undergone a “specific plyometric training program.”

According to McAndrews, part of this training is practicing proper technique. “Most coaches that are coaching learned their ways to coach before ACLs and concussions got important. Now they are being told to change the way they teach.”

Ultimately, the injury issue can be addressed in different ways before the season begins, taking steps toward a future with a decreased risk on the field or court for a potentially season-ending incident.

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4 ◆ The Newtonite, Newton North

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Technology enhances learning, raises concerns Maya Metser Teachers at North are relying more on technology to expand on and inspire a deeper understanding of material taught in class, leading to increased concern for students who lack the resources to access digital tools. by

Schoology

Perhaps the most utilized online tool at this school is Schoology. Math department head Nicole Conway said that after learning about Schoology, she introduced it to math teachers to see if they might be interested in using it.

“The goal is to have one place for you, as a student, to log in with all of your classes there, as opposed to having seven different websites all on different platforms,” said Conway.

Schoology closely resembles Facebook—there is a “Notifications” button and a “Recent Activity” tab where new posts from teachers appear at the top of the page. Teachers can post announcements, grades, and update a calendar. Students can “Like” a post, message a teacher, submit assignments through Google Drive, and partake in discussions.

History teacher Albert Cho now uses Schoology instead of a separate website and uploads all grades to Schoology. “I view discussions, blogs, and those types of things as a way to enhance what I do in the classroom. Also, it is a place for students to get information about the course, due dates, assignments, and any resource that they might not have or lost,” he said.

Schoology simplifies student-toteacher communication, according to math teacher Leigh Paris. She said, “Students and I communicate through the Schoology messaging system. I find it a lot easier to keep track of online conversation with students this way.”

In-class tools

Math teacher Jennifer Letourneau also uses Schoology, as well as several other digital tools. She uses the SMART Notebook software to take class notes so students can later check the notes and diagrams she drew on the board. “I know it’s hard to always re-create the sketches and diagrams. I was a visual learner as a student, so I take that really seriously for my students,” she said.

Paris and math teacher Keith Whelan also use the interactive whiteboards to project problems, notes, and videos. Whelan said he uses graphing calculator software so students can follow along with how to correctly use the calculator, and he uses the document camera to display worksheets. “It is really great to be able to use the document camera to display a student’s piece of work as an example to show the entire class,” said Whelan.

While students work in groups during class, Paris uses an app on her phone, CamScanner, to take pictures of student work. The app turns them into PDFs, and Paris then puts the PDF images into the SMART Notebook and projects the students’ work to discuss as a class.

“Every day, the saved PDF gets saved into a folder on my computer that is connected to Schoology,” Paris said. “Students can then access these class notes from their Schoology accounts at any time.”

Because many teachers use Schoology to post class agendas, handouts, and homework, students who are absent from class can easily access what they missed.

Grades are “live,” according to Paris, meaning students can access their up-to-date grades at any time.

To even further enhance in-class learning, several math and science teachers bring in laptop carts to class to allow students to do explorations and simulations using applications such as GeoGebra, Geometer’s Sketchpad, and Odyssey.

These applications help bring mathematics and science to life and help students grasp the material visually.

With GeoGebra, “you have the ability to graph functions, make points move, see how graphs change the function, and how certain characteristics are changing,” said Letourneau. “Instead of imagining it or having someone use their hands to visualize it, it actually shows what happens when that’s the case.”

Likewise, science teacher David Bennett said that Odyssey, a teaching program for chemistry with similar benefits as GeoGebra, “helps students visualize what is happening on the micro-scale.”

Advanced Placement Chemistry courses utilize the flipped classroom model in which students watch recorded lectures at home. This way, according to Bennett, there is more time in class for students to work in

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Using technology: Math teacher Jennifer Letourneau uses the interactive whiteboard during class Tuesday, Jan. 12. groups and solve difficult problems in order to “increase their understanding of material.”

Letourneau sees technology as a way to engage students. She said, “As soon as there is a video or a clip, all of a sudden students are like, ‘Yeah! We’re in! It moves!

It’s digital!’

“I went to school when it was chalk and chalkboards,” said Letourneau. “So technology is a way for the students who don’t process as quickly and be able to revisit and re-create the lesson that otherwise was disappearing before their eyes.”

Whelan and Bennett both said they feel technology de-emphasizes memorization, letting students focus on more important skillsets and make connections to real life instead of spending time on “tedious” tasks.

“Because technology can be such a useful tool, students have the opportunity to focus more of their learning on deeper connections,” said Whelan. “For example, students can save time and energy by using a calculator to perform long, tedious calculations and to graph functions. This then allows students to spend more time focusing on the application and analysis aspects of their work.”

Drawbacks

Josh Shub-Selzer

Racing for the win: Junior Despina Georgiadis races in a girls’ indoor track meet Wednesday, Jan. 13 in the SOA.

Despite the numerous advantages technology holds for student learning, teachers have expressed concern over accessibility.

“I suppose that until we are in a time and place where all students have equal computer access, we have to make sure that our use of technology is a learning resource that supports students and never puts any student at a disadvantage,” said Paris.

Bennett said that he worries about access because so many of his courses involve online work at home.

This ability to access a computer, according to Letourneau, is essential to student success. She recognizes that “in terms of the structure of our school” and the availability of technology, together with “the time that students have and the devices they have,” most students can easily access online resources.

For convenience, Paris tries to provide everything students need in class and uses technology as a supplemental resource. She gives paper copies in class, writes notes on the board, and announces homework out loud.

Conway acknowledges that most students have access to these digital tools at home, “but at the same time we don’t want to prevent some kids from having the same resources,” she said.

Solutions

According to Whelan, at the beginning of the year, he gave a short survey homework assignment to learn about his students.

After identifying students who did not have Internet access, he found time to have private conversations to make sure they understood how they could access the Internet.

Bennett has a similar approach.

“I hope they are honest with me, but if they aren’t, I will really be able to tell if they aren’t doing their homework,” he said. “From there, it will become a conversation with support staff in the building to make sure the student has access to whatever she or he needs.”

Letourneau said she has never encountered a situation where a student has had absolutely no ability to access the necessary resources. However, she has had students with limited access to reliable Internet. “I think we really need to make sure we know who the students are that have the troubles and work with them on an individual basis, because I think if we do that, we’re

going to be able to solve about 99 percent of all problems that we have,” said Letourneau.

Contacting the student’s counselor or housemaster “gets the ball rolling,” according to Whelan.

From there, Whelan can come up with solutions for those students.

“We have lots of access around the building and hopefully by working as a team, we can ensure that all students are supported,” he said.

Similarly, math teacher Lynne Ruozzi said, “I feel like our school has many ways for students to access computers. Most recently, the math department acquired 30 Chromebooks that we can bring into our classrooms. The library is also an excellent place for students to go online and access computer resources.”

Conway said she hopes that the district works toward going oneto-one, where every student has a device, whether it be an iPad or a laptop. Such a system would diminish concerns about computer access for certain students, as they would have constant Internet access—both at school and at home.

“Last year it was Schoology and increasing the amount of Chromebooks. So I think IT has a lot on its plate. One-to-one is a massive undertaking that I think might be a couple years out,” said Conway.

North is fortunate to have laptops to bring into classrooms and several computer labs. Students are encouraged to use the Library Learning Commons, the labs, and X-blocks to access these available tools during the school day.

Letourneau is in favor of the increased use of technology in school despite concerns about access. “I do believe it has made things better.

I think we have to be careful about paying attention to the challenges and the drawbacks as we use it, but as long as we keep those checks and balances, it should be a winwin,” she said.

feature

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Newton North, The Newtonite ◆ 5

New college application sparks optimism Jacob Gurvis When it comes to college, teens can often feel helpless and stressed.

There are several changes afoot in regards to the college application process, and the potential impacts of the newest change are promising.

Starting in April, the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success will be launching its new application, aimed at improving the process for students and families.

The Coalition includes 80 colleges and universities, including all eight Ivy League schools. The application will be offered as an alternative to the Common Application, which includes 517 colleges and universities. Students will be able to choose which application they use.

The exact layout of the new application is still unclear, but the Coalition’s purpose is clear. According to its website, the Coalition’s mission is to “improve the college application process for all students as they search for and apply to their perfect college.”

“What I am excited about,” said college and career counselor Melissa Hanenberger, “is that in order to be a college in the Coalition, you are required to meet the full financial aid needs of your accepted students and graduate at least 70 percent of your students within six years. Making this a goal for colleges is admirable and hopefully more colleges will follow suit.”

Senior Benji Cole, an SFA representative, is impressed with the Coalition so far. “I think it has done an amazing job by amassing the colleges,” he said. “Just a quick scroll through, and you’re able to recognize so many names, which is by

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Looking to the future: Various pamphlets about post-graduation options for North students are available in North’s College and Career Center. admirable for a new organization to be able to accomplish so quickly.”

Junior Nick Zhang is also optimistic. He said, “As long as there are a lot of colleges that are in, and a lot of colleges that are willing to work with it, I think it’ll definitely work.”

The application will offer a “locker” feature, a virtual portfolio into which students can upload academic and artistic work for colleges to see. The locker would be available to students starting in ninth grade, with the hope that by the time they are seniors, the locker would provide a breadth of work and projects.

Hanenberger said she thinks the locker feature is the one that will be used the most. “It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, but the possibilities are exciting,” she said.

The thought of beginning the college conversation in ninth grade can be daunting, but Hanenberger said she does not think the locker forces any unnecessary stress.

“I think this will help our students think about their accomplishments and activities across all four years of high school, but not necessarily decide what colleges they want to apply to in ninth grade,” she said.

Cole said he believes the Coalition’s promising mission is only part of a broader societal change surrounding college.

“We are living in a collegiate world, where not only is a high school education expected, but to really advance, you are expected to have a college education,” said Cole. “Yes, it’s a collegiate world, but that doesn’t mean we need a divided world. That doesn’t mean the disadvantaged are going to be stuck while others succeed because of their advantages.”

Perhaps the two most significant of these advantages are wealth and access to resources, two things the Coalition is trying to eliminate as advantages. Cole just navigated his way through this complicated process, so for him, these advantages are quite relevant.

For Cole, money did not play a large role in his application process. “It’s incredible,” he said, “how when people create a list of schools, how much [money] stops them from adding certain schools. I’ve realized how fortunate I am that that is not the first thing I think of.”

Other resources, such as counseling services, testing preparatory classes, and tutors, can play a large role in the process. “The counselor program here is extraordinary,” said Cole. “We’re lucky enough to have Naviance too, but it’s really the people who are supportive, so at any point you’re able to” talk to an adult.

Hanenberger, as a college and career counselor, understands the importance of these resources, and the challenges that come without them. “I worry that students at high schools without adequate counsel-

ing services will have trouble learning about this new process,” she said. “We are lucky at North to have a staffed College and Career Center, school counselors and programs like Transitioning Together, which will share information about the Coalition.”

Even with the resources available at North, the college process is still a challenge for students.

“As we always do,” said Hanenberger, “we will adapt to the changes and incorporate them into our counseling [services]. Just like students are told about the Common App, the Coalition will be explained and offered as a new option.”

While the depth of the Coalition’s impact is still unclear, Zhang said he thinks the new application will have a big effect on the Newton community.

“North is definitely a highachieving school,” said Zhang.

“But we also have differences in wealth. North is seen as wealthier, but there are people who are lower in [socioeconomic] status, and I think that this will be able to give a level playing field.”

It is not yet known whether the Coalition will be able to accomplish its goal of working to eliminate inequalities in the college applications process. However, members of the North community are optimistic, and they have been impressed with the Coalition’s purpose so far.

“North does an amazing job at helping us,” said Cole. “We live in a community that encourages us, and the fact that other people are going to have that opportunity is beautiful.”

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

6 ◆ The Newtonite, Newton North

Newton North, The Newtonite ◆ 7

Gender data contradicts concern AP Teachers

What role does gender play at this school?

Athletic Funding

Designed by Valeria Dountcheva

Feminism Club, the club has been trying to spread awareness about the gender gap, rather than make big policy or rule changes.

“On paper, our school is totally equal,” said Forman-Katz.

“But then there’s the underground stuff, the stuff you don’t see. We try to bring that to light and talk about it.”

In the past year, the club has undertaken a variety of projects to try to spread awareness such as writing a letter to a teacher who was being sexist in his classes and putting up posters on the bathroom walls.

However, at its core, Feminism Club “exists as a place where people can come weekly and talk about issues,” according to Forman-Katz. “It helps for people who don’t experience sexism as much to listen to people sharing their experiences.”

Similarly, GALS is also working to provide a safe place for girls to spend time. Junior Zoe Birnhak, a GALS officer, said,

“We accomplish our goals every day by having a strong community, where girls, especially underclassmen, have a place to go if they need to talk.”

According to Birnhak, the club is also focusing on fundraising this year. It hosted a meal at Rosie’s Place last weekend, a shelter for homeless women. “We like to help out the female community,” she explained.

Although these clubs are making strides to change the gender gap at North, according Birnhak, there is still more that needs to be done.

Birnhak explained that students can help make a change by “not discrediting girls’ answers” and “not making sexist remarks.”

She added that currently, “girls don’t feel like they can make themselves heard. They don’t feel like they can speak up about sexism.”

Lucy Lu This school offers many Career, Vocational, and Technical Education (CVTE) classes, some of which, notably the engineering and child development courses, are dominated by a single gender.

Female students make up 25 percent of all CVTE major programs, but this percentage is not reflective of the individual programs.

In the Engineering Technology class, there are three female students and 14 male students; the Exploring Technology classes have three females and 25 males; and in the Engineering 1 classes, there are nine female students and 43 male students.

According to engineering teacher Malinda Tupper, the gender discrepancy in the engineering program has been discussed among the faculty for years. She said, “In part, this gender imbalance is reflective of general trends in the field of engineering.” by

Over the years, the program has made specific efforts to counteract the gender imbalance, including the addition of a controversial Fashioneering course designed to appeal to females.

Sophomore Jessica Chen said the course was not effective in attracting females to engineering.

“This course represents a physical gender split,” she said. “It implies that females are not capable to take the general engineering courses that North offers.”

In the child development courses, there is a one-to-nine ratio of males to females. Child development teacher Michelle Ramsdell said that the caregiving of young children is traditionally viewed as a female job. She said, “Because many females care for their siblings or babysit more than males do, I believe that they are drawn to the course.”

According to freshman Juan Lopez, stereotypes can cause children to treat him differently.

“These differences are subtle, but when I work with the older

kids (three and a half to five years old),” said Lopez, “sometimes they say I have cooties.”

In an effort to combat these stereotypes and compensate for the gender discrepancy, the course publicizes the presence of males, according to Ramsdell.

“We try to showcase males in the classroom through video footage and brochures when we can,” she said. “When we have males in upper-level courses, they act as student ambassadors and go out to the middle schools to inform students about the program.”

Similarly, CVTE department head Diana Robbins said she believes that courses need to be represented by different genders.

“Students need to see representation of themselves in the group,” Robbins said. “We make sure there are female and male nontraditional representation for each program offered when the students visit the eighth graders to talk about program opportunities at the high school.”

History

60% Math

52% Science

51%

49% Language

56%

44% English

65%

35% Art*

77%

23% Music*

25%

AP Students

Jessica Tharaud Among Advanced Placement classes at North, there are generally more female than male students. In the humanities, a significantly higher amount of females take AP classes than males. Despite the common belief that fewer females take higher-level math and science classes, at North the split is fairly even.

In both the history and English departments, a majority of students in an AP class are female. Sixty-five percent of the students enrolled in AP English Literature and AP English Language and Composition, the only AP classes offered by the English department, are female. Of the 188 total students in an AP history class, 113 are female, not accounting for students enrolled in more than one AP history class. One of the most glaring examples of this phenomenon is AP American Studies, in which only three of the 18 students are males.

Junior Liran Federmann, a male student in AP American Studies, said that being one of three males in the class was “surprising” at the beginning of the year, but that he adjusted quickly to the gender divide. Federmann said he does not feel that the atmosphere is different from that

by

40%

48%

teachers than male math teachers for many years, said math department head Nicole Conway.

As does the history department, the math department prioritizes hiring capable teachers over purposefully choosing teachers for a diversity of background, but Conway added that, in her experience, a diversity among staff can be “empowering” for students of all backgrounds.

The math department’s significant amount of female math teachers “makes me proud,” Conway said.

75%

*The art department and music department only offer one AP class each: AP Art History, which has 13 students, and AP Music Theory, which has eight students.

English

Amy Morrill This year, the gender gap at our school has become more evident in concern about the attitudes towards and about women and girls.

To combat this problem, certain clubs, such as Feminism Club, Girls Coding Club, and Girls Achieving Leadership and Service (GALS) are working to effect change in our school.

Junior Winnie Chan, an officer of Girls Coding Club, said that she is one of only two or three girls in both her engineering and computer science classes.

“I just didn’t feel like I belonged,” explained Chan. “I had no role model, so it was hard to picture myself doing something like that in the future.”

As a girl who is interested in technical fields, which are mostly male-dominated, Chan decided to start the club to “inspire and encourage” girls to try coding.

According to senior Naomi Forman-Katz, an officer of by

CVTE Students

by

Language

Gender Awareness Clubs

Jessica Tharaud After data analysis and interviews with teachers and students, gender bias among Advanced Placement teachers does not appear to be a widespread issue at North.

Among most departments, there is a similar number of male and female AP teachers, with the exceptions of the math and history departments. Of the 25 total teachers who teach an AP class, 14 are male and 11 are female.

Half of all male AP teachers at North teach an AP history class.

According to history department head Jonathan Bassett, the prevalence of male AP history teachers is a “coincidence.”

The department’s “rigorous and thorough hiring process” is designed to choose the best overall teachers.

Bassett said that the quality of the teacher is more impactful on students’ experience than the gender of the teacher and noted that both of the history teachers hired last year were female.

In contrast, the math department has twice as many female AP teachers as male AP teachers.

In the math department, there have been more female math

charges “the same amount of money. You don’t pay more to watch the boys than you do to watch the girls,” said Giusti.

G i r l s ’ t r a c k c o a c h Jo e Tranchita said, “I have never found funding for our team to be lacking nor am I aware of any inequities with other teams.”

General tax-based revenue and user fees paid by each athlete comprise the money made for sports at North.

In some circumstances based on need, students may apply to be completely covered by the athletic department.

“People who need financial aid receive it,” said senior Carissa Stots, a girls’ indoor track captain.

According to Tranchita, “optional items that particular teams have decided to get, over and beyond what that team needed to field a successful team,” are not provided by the school, but through fundraising organized by coaches or by athletes themselves.

This fundraising is not done “to make up for a lack of funding,” he said.

“Things are really ke pt equal,” said Giusti.

Science

Rose Bostwick Hundreds of North students, male and female, participate in sports every season.

Despite students’ concerns regarding funding inequality between girls’ and boys’ athletics, gender does not decide funding for teams. Funding is decided by a rotation schedule and the cost of necessities for each team, according to athletic director Tom Giusti.

Giusti said there is a financial breakdown which shows that money for boys’, co-ed, and girls’ teams is distributed evenly. The athletic department must meet a budget of $10,000 to $12,000 per year.

“We have a rotation so we can easily see the distribution of the money spent, and we try to make sure that it’s even across the board,” he said.

Although funding may be equal for teams of the same sport in terms of gender, according to senior Megan Lenihan, a girls’ ice hockey captain, sometimes girls’ sports are not taken “as seriously.

“People have to pay to get into boys’ basketball games but not girls’, and certain rinks make people pay to get in for boys hockey games but not for girls,” she said.

While certain venues might charge for boys’ sports games and not girls’, North always by

Math

crepancies may be present due to historical stereotypes: among Advanced Placement teachers, in AP classes, in sports funding, and in career, vocational and technical education programs. The Newtonite also investigated clubs that raise awareness about gender issues: Girls Achieving Leadership and Service, Girls Coding Club, and Feminism Club.

Read the five stories below to learn about the extent to which gender imbalances are present and addressed at North.

History

Did you immediately assume that the blue represented male and pink represented female? The Newtonite selected these colors for ease of understanding for the graphs displayed, but The Newtonite also recognizes that the associations with these colors are indicative of the biases between males and females that are present in society.

North is not protected from inequalities between males and females. Through these stories, The Newtonite investigated five areas in which gender dis-

of any other class.

Males comprise 52 percent of students taking AP math classes, but only 49 percent of students in an AP science class are males.

This data runs contrary to the common perception that more males than females take higherlevel math and science courses.

In fact, many AP math and science classes have more girls than boys. For example, only 42 of the 96 students taking AP Calculus AB are male, and 41 of the 105 students in AP Biology are male.

But in AP Physics, there is a long history of a significantly higher amount of males than females in the class, according to science teacher Michael Hazeltine, who teaches AP Physics.

This year, there are six females and 25 males in the class. Hazeltine said that he is unsure why this is the case, but noted that the females in AP Physics are usually some of the strongest students.

According to senior Amy Huang, one of the females in AP Physics, the gender discrepancy does not affect her mindset in the class because, as a senior, she has been in other classes with many of the same people. However, Huang said, “If I walked into a class like that freshman year, it would have made the atmosphere more oppressive.”

8 â—† The Newtonite, Newton North

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Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Newton North, The Newtonite â—† 9

Sudoku Puzzle

For solutions to the word search and sudoku, go to theNewtonite.com

Winter Word Search

Words Bruins Frostbite Hockey Kwanzaa Skiing

Snowman Christmas Gingerbread Holidays Eggnog

Hanukkah Ice Skating New Years Snowflake

Words may appear vertically, horizontally, diagonally, forwards, or backwards.

Tiger Quiz: Can you guess which teacher has done what?

1.Which teacher has seen the punk band Husker Du thirteen times?

a) History and social sciences department head Jonathan Bassett

b) Spanish teacher Denise Cremin

c) English teacher Alicia Carrillo

d) Science teacher Naomi Berg

6.Which teacher has gone ice climbing on a glacier?

a) Physical education teacher Robert MacDougall

b) Science teacher Paul Martenis

c) English teacher Colleen Moore

d) History teacher Leah Morelli

2.Which teacher was once stung by a hive of bees (over 50 stings, including one in the eye)?

a) Science teacher Peter Hamel

b) History teacher Duncan Wood

c) Math teacher Brandon Mogayzel

d) Math teacher Jennifer Letourneau

7. Which teacher worked at a California winery?

a) English teacher Mike Schlegelmilch

b) French teacher Kathryn Tessier

c) Science teacher Ann Dannenberg

d) Riley house secretary Maura Roberts

4.Which teacher watched a mountain lion chase a feral donkey while camping in the Mojave Desert?

a) English teacher Anna George

b) Science teacher Allison Greenbaum

c) Math teacher Adam Peloquin

d) History teacher John Fitzgerald 5. Which teacher creates theatre sets, props, and jewelry?

a) Math teacher Smitha Sahadevan

b) Math teacher Joseph Siciliano

c) Science teacher Matt Anderson

d) History teacher Jamie Bal

8.Which teacher volunteered in Ecuador for three months?

a) Arts teacher Eileen Gagarin

b) Math teacher Elisse Ghitelman

c) Science teacher Barbara Gibson

d) English teacher Nick Grant 9.Which teacher blew glass while travelling through Italy?

a) Art teacher Cindy Massoff

b) English teacher Sheela Maupin

c) History teacher Jamie Bal

d) Science teacher David Bennett 10.Which teacher has worked for MTV, NBC Universal, E! Entertainment television, and National Geographic?

a) English teacher Maureen Kavanaugh

b) Business teacher Rob Kane

c) Film teacher Scott Dunlop

d) Science teacher Naomi Berg Answers: 1. a 2. c 3. b 4. d 5. d 6. c 7. b 8. a 9. a 10. c

3.Which teacher has studied Hebrew in Israel, Arabic in Morocco, and Swahili in Kenya?

a) Math teacher Sam Shoutis

b) Science teacher Arielle Miles

c) Science teacher Kim Mayer

d) Physical education teacher Courtney Albert

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10 ◆ The Newtonite, Newton North

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

School community seeks to reduce paper usage Cate Waters S t u d e n t s , f a c u l t y, a n d administration have articulated concern regarding the amount of paper wasted as a result of excessive printing, as students have claimed that it is taxing to the environment and imposes a heavy cost on the school.

To limit paper usage, students said they believe teachers should look to online options.

“Considering Google Docs is something we all use, and we can hand papers in that way,” said sophomore Noelle Quinn, “I think we print too much paper. I don’t understand why teachers require a hard copy.”

English teacher Kate Shaughnessy said that a hard copy is necessary because “some teachers prefer to grade by hand. I know in the English department we keep student writing folders. We like to have the teachers’ comments already in writing so we can see the students’ progress.”

Sophomore Joe Varady said he has seen “a teacher just throw a bunch of paper copies away just because they didn’t have a use” for the paper copies even though students “will go and ask for more copies because they lose them.”

To limit the amount of paper by

Devin Perlo

Library printer: Freshman Nicholas Quintana picks up his homework after printing to the new library printer Thursday, Jan. 14. wasted, senior Mark Columba suggested that students should use “double-sided sheets and write things down in their notebook. We should also do things online rather than printing worksheets out.”

Sophomore Emma Ross said she thinks that students should continue to print “for editing purposes, but I

think for handing it in, we should share it via Google Drive.”

Administrative technology specialist Phil Golando also suggested using Google Drive as an option to limit the cost that the school spends on printing.

“I think with the widespread acceptance of using Google Drive,

we should be moving away from the printed page,” said Golando.

Sophomore Teddy Everett expressed another concern about the unnecessary amount of paper students receive in math class.

“In math I get a new packet everyday. It is a waste because we never end up doing them,” said Everett.

Math teacher Joseph Siciliano said he agrees that the amount of paper students receive is wasteful, and it will be cut down in the future.

“This was our first run using those packets,” said Siciliano. “For next year, we will go through the packets and take out the unnecessary pages. This year, we put everything we may need in it and teachers could select what pages they use.

As of now, we are using these types of packets for freshmen and sophomores.”

Golando said he believes there are also other ways to save money while still printing. Printing to a networked copy machine, for example, would cost around two-thirds less per page as it does now because less toner and paper would be wasted, according to Golando.

Networked copy machines “are technologies where we can have print jobs go to a queue. To get the printout the person goes to the selected printer and enters their

unique code, which will release the job to print. This will ensure that ink and paper are not wasted by those who forget to pick up their print jobs,” said Golando.

Printing unused pages is expensive, but it is even more expensive to replace a printer altogether. Every time a printer breaks and needs to be replaced, the school spends from $300 up to $3,000, the cost of the new library printer, according to Golando.

“Ideally we will move towards more centralized printing on copiers to reduce the printed cost per page,” said Golando. “We have a new print management company that is managing our toner supplies and will be helping us to move towards the new model.”

Further benefits of reducing paper usage include cutting printer maintenance costs.

When it comes to maintaining the printers at school, “the toner can cost between $60 and $150 for black and white toner,” said Golando. “The maintenance cost really depends on how much the printer is used. Those that get a lot of printing, like in the Main Office, go through more toner and cost more to maintain, while a printer in a guidance counselor office requires much less maintenance.”

Recycling Club, administration create recycling program Jacob Sims Speyer Students and faculty from the North community have made a joint effort to increase the amount of recycling at this school. Recent attempts to increase recycling include the ordering of additional recycling bins as well as the planning of recycling education programs.

Students and administration see the first step as addressing the community’s awareness of just what can be recycled.

“One of the challenges is cultural. I expect that there will be significant growth in our program in the coming years,” said interim principal Mark Aronson.

According to Aronson, one of the biggest challenges of recycling is the intermingling of trash and recyclables. “If students or staff put something in a recycling bin that does not belong there, that recycling then has to be thrown in the trash.”

The waste disposal company charges the city if people mix nonrecyclables in with recycling, he said.

Aronson said, “There has been a noticeable decrease in the amount of contaminated recycling.” He atby

Devin Perlo

Students discuss logistics of composting at North during a Recycling Club meeting Thursday, Jan. 14. tributed this change to Recycling Club.

Recycling Club has played a large role in maintaining the current recycling effort at this school.

Club members empty each classroom’s recycling bin once a week and put the recyclables into larger containers, which are later emptied into dumpsters.

One of Recycling Club’s main efforts is to garner school-wide participation. “Our goal is to create a sustainable recycling system, one that doesn’t depend on student volunteers,” said junior Danae Lally, an officer of Recycling Club.

In order to achieve this goal, Recycling Club and the administration have collaborated on multiple fronts. Recently, the school ordered 10 large recycling bins to be placed strategically in the hallway, Lally said. “Each homeroom will go and dump the recycling in those bins. Students will bring those bins at the end of the day down to the recycling [dumpsters],” she added.

Currently, this school has two dumpsters for trash, which are emptied daily, and two dumpsters for recycling, which are emptied every week, according to Waste Management, the company that processes this school’s waste removal.

To combat the lack of student knowledge about recycling, Recycling Club hopes to organize a “recycling day,” which, according to sophomore Wendy Li, would host speakers as well as workshops.

The goal of a recycling day would be to raise awareness for the

issue as well as encourage students themselves to recycle. “Right now, there is a lot of commitment as far as ‘I support you,’ but there is not a lot as far as ‘I will do something actively for it,’” said Li. In an attempt to educate teachers on the new initiatives, Recycling Club outlined some of its goals at a faculty meeting in December. At the presentation, officers of the club encouraged faculty members to place their recycling bins outside their door after school each week to be emptied by club members. Additionally, the presentation educated faculty on what materials can be recycled, as well as ways to spread awareness of the effort throughout the school.

Both Aronson and the officers of Recycling Club expressed a concern over past precedents for recycling. According to Li, North students formed a recycling club 10 years ago, but it eventually stopped meeting due to a lack of interest.

“You can’t depend on students who will graduate,” she said. “You have to have a system in the school that will sustain itself, and we are trying to work towards that.”

news

Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Newton North, The Newtonite ◆ 11

Samidio DePina places first in speech contest Jackie Gong and Andrew Mannix Samidio DePina won the fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Sophomore Speech Competition with his speech about making mistakes last Friday during B-block in the auditorium.

In his speech, “Aw, Crap!”

DePina emphasized the importance of errors. “[It’s] the perfect topic for me because I’m an expert at making mistakes,” he said.

DePina began his speech with an anecdote of a time he accidentally stepped in feces as a toddler.

“We are phoenixes, constantly being reborn from our ashes,” said DePina. “You screw up, you analyze, you learn—that’s what’s important. How can you expect to be successful if you’re not willing to make mistakes?”

DePina said that his strategy was to “go with the flow. I actually made a mistake during my speech about mistakes and no one noticed.”

Interim principal Mark Aronson, one of the finalist judges, said, “I thought that the opening part of his speech was so vivid; it set the scene.

I could picture him walking with his father and stepping in the dog poop, and I thought that grabbed people pretty quickly.”

DePina delivered his speech Monday at the annual city-wide Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at Our Lady Help of Christian’s

Parish.

Runner-up Nora Geffen discussed gender roles in children’s television programming in her speech, “Gender Roles in ScoobyDoo,” a topic she chose after watching an episode of the show with her cousin.

The contest began with speech competitions in sophomore English classes. One winner from each class then performed his or her speech in front of five judges Jan. 6 and 7.

From this pool of 22 semi-finalists, the judges chose finalists DePina, Geffen, Carrieanne Mamba, Sydney Reynders, and Sophie Spector.

Mamba, in her speech, “Appreciate Barongs,” spoke about the importance of respecting culture and remembering your roots.

Reynders inspired students to spread kindness to people with disabilities in her speech, “Would You Say, ‘Hi’?”

Spector highlighted how “certain items in CVS are packaged separately as pink and blue, even though it’s the same exact product,” in her speech, “Needlessly Gendered Products.”

The final round’s panel of judges consisted of Aronson, Riley housemaster Michelle Stauss, English teachers Alicia Carrillo and Tim Finnegan, and junior Carolina Fernandez, last year’s winner.

As a judge, Fernandez hoped to see a speech with strong presentation that brought “a call of change that

someone has not thought of before, and leaves the audience with a better idea on how they can make the world a better place,” she said.

Fernandez’s speech last year compared the gratitude of students at North and children in other countries fighting for their education and called for a realization of education’s value.

According to Aronson, “in the media, you always see negative images of teenagers” instead of the “awesome” students here at North, showcased by their speeches.

Finnegan said that he enjoys seeing “kids who don’t want to engage early in the unit but end up delivering phenomenal speeches and coming out as the classroom victor because their peers are so impressed.

“The last four years we’ve done it, we haven’t had victors come from the honors classes, and I think that it’s really important and powerful that this really does level the playing field and gives everybody a fair shot,” he added.

English department head Melissa Dilworth said the speech unit is successful because “students all rally around it and can support one another. There are very few times in English where we can do things at the same time, but this is a moment where you can talk with your friends [about their speeches] who aren’t in your same classes.”

◆ continued from page 1 However, in part because of its difficulty level, PARCC has sparked strong opposition nationwide. In fact, countless parents across the country have joined an “opt-out” movement in an effort to exempt their children from the test—a move backed by the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association (MTA), which opposes not only PARCC but also high-stakes testing in general.

Guttman, meanwhile—after seeing samples of MCAS and PARCC and observing students’ reactions to both tests—said she prefers MCAS, in part because it is more age-appropriate for students.

Guttman noted that some of the reading passages on the PARCC test would have been better suited for students one or more grade levels higher.

She added that the wording of the questions on PARCC is often unclear and that she herself sometimes had trouble making sense of the questions on PARCC practice exams.

Guttman is not alone in her concerns. In an open letter to

president Obama published in the Huffington Post, one parent wrote, “I have a Ph.D. in English. I got seven out of 36 multiple choice questions wrong on the 11th grade test. And I had no idea what to do with this essay prompt on the third grade test.”

Other critics of PARCC claim that there was never any reason to overhaul the original MCAS test and the associated standards at all, because Massachusetts already had the nation’s strongest educational system before the introduction of PARCC and the Common Core standards that stand behind it.

A Boston-based policy organization called the Pioneer Institute, which advocates “public policy solutions based on free-market principles” and strongly opposes the Common Core, declared in a press release: “the Commonwealth should reject any further participation in the PARCC consortium. The previous standards and MCAS made Massachusetts the envy of the country and the only state that truly is internationally competitive.”

Although the issue of PARCC

versus MCAS often provokes passionate responses on both sides, not everyone believes that either one test or the other has to be judged the winner in a head-to-head contest. Boston College professor of education Michael Russell suggests that neither MCAS nor PARCC is inherently “better” because the two were designed for different purposes: MCAS aims to measure a student’s grasp of state standards from year to year, while PARCC is meant to measure a student’s progress toward college and career readiness.

“Both have their strengths, depending on what you’re trying to do,” said Russell. “It’s like asking, ‘Which is better, a hammer or a screwdriver?’”

by

Josh Shub-Seltzer

Samidio DePina discusses the importance of growing from mistakes in the final round of the Martin Luther King Jr. Sophomore Speech Contest Friday, Jan. 15.

Controversial test to become graduation requirement

MCAS versus PARCC: Proficiency Comparison 60%

Grades 3-8 ELA PARCC

40%

68%

MCAS

32%

52%

Grades 3-8 Math PARCC

48%

60%

MCAS

40%

High School ELA* 39%

PARCC

61%

91%

MCAS

9%

Concerns About MCAS 2.0 timeline

Guttman expressed concern that school officials will implement MCAS 2.0 as early as next year in grades K-8. Their claim “that they will have the test ready in a year seems hard to believe,” she said.

Fleishman, meanwhile, expressed confidence in Newton’s ability to adapt to the new test, noting that Massachusetts schools experienced another significant transition when MCAS was first implemented in the late 1990s and that “Newton embraced that change.”

Guttman remains unconvinced.

Noting that some of the problems with PARCC probably could have been avoided had its creators spent more time developing the test, she suggested that state officials now should “take a break and design a test worth taking.”

High School Math*† 26%

PARCC

74%

79%

MCAS

21% graphic by Maria Trias

MCAS Proficient and Advanced PARCC Meets Expectations or College and Career Ready

MCAS Failing or Needs Improvement PARCC Fails to Meet Expectations or not College and Career Ready *High School PARCC percentages are based on a voluntary pilot exam. †PARCC High School Math percentages are an average of the four math subject tests.

Data courtesy of MCAS chief analyst and acting PARCC director Robert Lee.

The Fight Over Feedback

Another area of sharp disagreement about the relative merits of PARCC versus MCAS concerns the quality of feedback given on the two assessments.

According to Nellhaus, MCAS 2.0 will likely be similar to PARCC in the style of its feedback and the frequency of its administration.

Nellhaus maintains that, at the high school level, PARCC provides teachers with better—and more grade-specific—information than MCAS. In those places where PARCC is used in high schools, he said, it is administered in the ninth, 10th, and 11th grades, whereas the math, reading, and writing portions of MCAS are only administered in 10th grade in high schools. This means that instead of relying on a single test that covers high school math in general, PARCC offers tests in algebra I, geometry, and algebra II, allowing teachers to receive “more specific and frequent feedback” on how their students are doing.

According to the Massachusetts Department of Education, PARCC also offers annual exams for schools like North that have an “integrated” curriculum covering elements of both algebra and geometry each year.

Guttman, in contrast, said the score reports students receive from PARCC are disappointing because they lack specificity. This marks a significant departure from MCAS score reports, which detail which topic areas students have mastered and which they still need to improve upon, according to Guttman.

Underlining this concer n, Guttman added, “One of the major purposes of testing is to help students and teachers, and MCAS did that for us.” She further observed that “teachers were disappointed about the amount of effort that went into having PARCC happen and the fact that at the end, there was very little information that was useful.”

The Question of Control

Even apart from the specifics of the tests themselves, proponents of state-level solutions in Massachusetts and around the nation claim that both PARCC and the Common Core undermine state authority and amount to federal overreach. These concerns have become widespread even though both PARCC and the Common Core are products of national consortiums, not the federal

government, and states are not technically compelled under federal regulations to adopt either the PARCC tests or the Common Core standards. Nevertheless, the Pioneer Institute declares on its website: “Despite three federal laws that prohibit the federal government from directing, supervising or controlling elementary and secondary school curricula, the U.S. Department of Education has placed the nation on the road to a national curriculum.”

A strong opponent of PARCC and the Common Core, the Pioneer Institute has already expressed moderate support for MCAS 2.0 because it will be controlled by Massachusetts officials.

Some experts point out, however, that deviating from the PARCC test through the introduction of MCAS 2.0 could pose problems for Massachusetts, which is a member of the PARCC consortium. For example, both Nellhaus and Russell suggested that the decision to alter the PARCC test could make it difficult for Massachusetts to accurately compare its educational performance against other states that administer PARCC in unmodified form.

State officials “want to have input on the one hand, but on the other hand they want the results to be compared to those of students in other states,” said Nellhaus. “That’s difficult.” One route Massachusetts could take in order to satisfy both of these objectives, in his view, would be to administer the PARCC test as is but to add another section with material developed specifically by Massachusetts officials. That would make the test longer and could raise still other concerns, he said.

Russell added that Massachusetts initially played a significant role in the PARCC consortium but that its status could change now that the state is no longer planning to administer PARCC in its pure form.

“It is unclear whether Massachusetts will be able to maintain a strong voice [in the PARCC consortium],” he said.

12 â—† The Newtonite, Newton North

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Friday, Jan. 22, 2016