DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL SERVICES

ANIKA RAO copy editor

The Fremont Union High School District’s Special Services team aims to make general education more accessible for disabled students.

Historically, the funding and importance placed on disability resources in public schools have been inadequate; however, this disparity is not necessarily the district’s fault. The Brookings Institution finds that, on average, the state of California receives around one hundred dollars less per child in special education than federally promised.

dent has a documented disability or impairment which restricts at least one area of their school life.

In addition to 504 plans, every American public school must offer Individualized Education Programs. These IEPs are tailored to an individual student and their specific needs, designed to aid students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, attention

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As a result, FUHSD receives the money needed to power disability-accommodating programs through a myriad of sources: the federal government, the state government, and property taxes. The federal money comes from the 1990 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Unfortunately, the money from Congress is inadequate, which forces FUHSD and other school districts to turn to local taxes and state money.

To enroll a student into special education at Tino, the student’s guardian must fill out a 504 plan to confirm that the stu - hyper-deficit disorder and autism.

Tino also provides screenings for any learning disabilities at no cost to the parents, for students incompatible with general education. Depending on the impact the disability has on the student’s education, the Special Services team may take measures outside of special education.

Some examples of these are the student tutoring services offered on campus, such as Terra Nova and AVID, which are targeted toward students who show academic promise but are sometimes limited by extraneous factors. For students with disabilities that have less of an impact on their academic life, these programs and their additional levels of support may help minimize their disability’s effect on their school performance.

Special Services Director

Nancy Sullivan is in charge of managing the resources available for students with disabilities in both special and general education. Currently, the Special Services team is focusing on how to make the general education sector more accommodating towards students with disabilities, especially mental ones.

Sullivan believes the campus and district team members are FUHSD’s biggest strength. Steps are being taken specifically in Tino around to make therapists more available and to have a team for students to confide in. Said Sullivan,“I’m really proud of the people that work in special education. I think that we have really dedicated smart people that advocate for students all day long. So I feel like that is a benefit.”

The Special Services team at the FUHSD head office intends to improve upon the resources available for students in general education with mental or physical disabilities

Analyzing harmful tropes conveyed in popular media

Adarker message lies beyond the covers of everyone’s favorite novels and storylines — these romance novels and elegant poems are more problematic than the average rom-com.

Colleen Hoover, a popular author that rose to fame on Tik Tok and Instagram for her hard-hitting, emotional novels, is known to write books centered on heavy topics and toxic love interests. Her most popular novel, “It Ends With Us,” originally published in 2016, focused on domestic abuse and generational trauma.

The novel features several romantic moments and a charming love interest, enticing readers to a book that appears to be an inspi rational romantic novel at first glance. However, Hoover’s im pressionable young audience fails to understand that the relationships portrayed in the book are severely unhealthy. Her stories create an unrealistic and overly glamorized view of toxic relationships.

Much like her previous liter ary works, “It Ends With Us” was advertised as a romantic novel. Even so, the book explored many triggering and inaccurately represented topics. For instance, the male lead repeatedly abused the female protagonist through scenes depicting him hitting her and pushing her off the stairs, among others. However, the female character’s child with the abuser made him stay involved in her life after she left him. Despite past physical abuse, the female lead constantly made excuses for her husband, conveying that domestic abuse is amendable. In this way, Hoover used abuse to garner attention for the plot rather than for representation.

Many readers are easily influenced by the messages portrayed in “It Ends with Us.” Readers have started defending the antagonist, Ryle Kincaid, who physically and emotionally abused the main character, Lily

Bloom. Many are quoting one particular line to justify the actions of the abuser. In her book, Hoover writes, “There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.” This line could easily be interpreted to make readers believe domestic abuse is not inherently bad and can be forgiven.

One reader on Goodreads, a book-sharing website, expressed that they resonated with the abusive character more than the love interest. They added, “I even subconsciously forgave him the first time he hit [the female main character] because I couldn’t believe he did it on purpose.” Much of the justification for his abuse was simply that he experienced a relationship. When Miles decided to create a future with Tate, she had felt capable of ‘fixing’ him. trau - matic childhood and is rich and good-looking — a common excuse for abusers in real life as well.

In Hoover’s novel, “Ugly Love,” published in 2014, centered the storyline around characters Miles Archer and Tate Collins. From the beginning of their relationship, Archer set rules for Collins. He prohibited her from inquiring about his past and said she should not expect a future from him. By having the main character outline these rules, Hoover effectively highlighted the lack of emotional intimacy in the relationship. Throughout the novel, readers saw Collins go from being an independent woman to being heavily reliant on Miles for her happiness and well-being, creating an unbalanced power dynamic in their

Additionally, Hoover’s novel, “November 9,” trended on TikTok years after its 2015 release. The plot revolved around Fallon O’Neil and Ben Kessler’s romance. Many of Kessler’s actions towards O’Neil’s personality are visibly dangerous, but Hoover’s writing failed to acknowledge such occurrences. Kessler often makes disrespectful remarks about O’Neil and her body, eventually escalating to harassment. In a particular chapter, O’Neil had explicitly asked Kessler to halt their kissing, but he disregarded her plea and persisted without her consent. Likewise, when O’Neil tries to leave him to continue her date with someone else, Kessler “[wished] he could hold her down” and physically prevented her from leaving the room, indicating his lack of regard for her and her limits. By dictating what O’Neil wore and who she could associate with, Kessler exhibited obsessive and controlling behavior, which should not have been romanticized or promoted to readers. By displaying these characteristics as ‘brave’ or ‘protective,’ the harmful intentions of the character are masked to readers.

Through marketing these books as romance novels, readers are inclined to see the relationship between the protagonists in the novel as a standard, thereby encouraging unsafe and toxic ideals. In the majority of her novels, the two main characters almost always ended up together, irrespective of the harmful behavior exhibited throughout the relationship.

By viewing these characters as the standard, toxic media like Hoover’s novels can promote false perceptions in readers, blinding them from the dangers of normalizing these behaviors. Despite Hoover’s attempts to tackle heavy matters like physical and emotional abuse, her books do not effectively convey the message