Cub Issue 2019

redwood

bark.

CUB

Social Media Challenges

9

17

Shakeshack

Unkown Animals of ‘87

redwood high school ● 395 doherty dr., larkspur, ca 94939 ● volume LXI, no. 6 ● April 5, 2019 ● www.redwoodbark.org

19

Loss of funding affects Twin Cities schools

By Keadan Bradley Cub Reporter

The Larkspur-Corte Madera Elementary School District has officially begun cutting $1 million from their budget. The district is comprised of the Cove School, Hall Middle School and Neil Cummins Elementary School, all of which will be greatly affected by the cutbacks. This loss will result in the reduction of many staff members including administrators, yard duties, crossing guards, teacher’s aids, specialists, librarians and custodians, as well as the loss of programs such as music class, choir and band and reduction of art and P.E. classes.

The meeting discussing the budget cuts took place on March 6, at which many teachers spoke in front of the board. Teacher Rebecca Newburn was one of these staff members, and referred to the survey that the district sent out to schools and the public regarding what cuts would be made.

Newburn said that when the survey was given to the public, it was not made clear that it was intended to support the budget cuts and therefore did not reflect the values of the staff.

“This survey did not include options of reducing staff at the administrative level, as it needs to prioritize programs and I think that if that had been included, you would have clearly heard from the staff in terms of our priorities,” Newburn said.

Lynn Werner, a teacher’s aid and yard duty at Neil Cummins as well as a Redwood parent, was similarly frustrated by the budget cuts and the way they have been handled.

“The superintendent [Brett Geithman] was running out of time. There was no time to bring a new proposal to the table, and the superintendent didn’t want to make a new one,” Werner said.

With such a high percentage of staff needing to be cut, the board has offered early retirement options to those who qualify in hopes of making voluntary cutbacks, but they will need to make many cuts beyond this. Much of the staff will not know if their jobs are secure until the end of the year and some may leave due to the fact the district is cutting them to three and a quarter hours per day. For staff to get benefits, they must work four hours a day, so this will leave many of the staff members without healthcare.

At the board meeting, it was a four-to-one vote in favor of cutting non-teaching positions, which include specialists and teachers aides. However, members of the community are pushing back, claiming that these positions are a necessity.

Lisa Brigulio, a teacher at Bel Aire Elementary school and a Neil Cummins mother, has had many students who require an aid in the classroom. “[In] kindergarten through second grade it’s important to have a second adult in the room to help with those developmental ages,” Brigulio said.

Although Brigulio is not a teacher at Neil Cummins, she has also experienced dealing with cuts as Bel Aire recently lost their funding for crossing guards.

“It’s dangerous for the kids not to have that, now the teachers have to do it. It is just adding more to what the

Photo by Keadan Bradley

AMID RECENT BUDGET cuts, Neil Cummins Elementary School faces backlash from community. The cuts, which were announced on March 6, will result in staff layoffs and program cuts. teachers already do,” Brigulio said.

According to Brigulio, her son, a third grader at Neil Cummins, came home disappointed after discovering that he will not be able to take band next year.

“It’s really disappointing for the third graders who were looking forward to taking band,” Brigulio said. “I don’t like seeing anything in the arts cut because they have such little of it anyway in the schools that it’s really unfortunate it’s the first thing to go.”

Not only are staff pushing back on the cuts, the district community is as well. There have been multiple petitions created and signed to keep members of the staff.

A popular one of these petitions was to save the crossing guard, Mike Kozak, who has been there for 26 years. A petition to save several staff members, including Kozak, had approximately 830 supporters on Change.org before it was closed.

Samantha Corvi, a Redwood student who attended Neil Cummins, is disheartened by the cutbacks, especially with staff and programs.

“I had a really good relationship with one of the crossing guards; it makes me frustrated because they do a lot for our community in keeping all of the kids safe,” Corvi said.

She also found the amount of art and music that is going to be cut surprising.

“Art and music is such a big part of elementary school, it’s where kids bond with their friends and teachers by

New science curriculum spurs mixed reviews among underclassmen

By Audrey Lightfoot Cub Reporter

As the end of the year approaches, Redwood students have gone through nearly the entirety of the new science curriculum put in place for current freshmen and incoming students. Although the science staff continues to believes this change will benefit students, according to Integrated 3-4 teacher Katie Slattery, there have been mixed reviews from the student body.

The layout of the new courses is a mandatory three-year plan, which includes the classes Physics in the Universe, Living Earth and chemistry. These classes take the place of Integrated Science 1-2 and 3-4, as well as chemistry. Physics in the Universe focuses more on the physical side of science, while the Living Earth course has

an emphasis on biology and earth science.

Slattery, believes that this new material will offer something different to students in a positive way, though there are substantial differences when comparing the past and current classes. “[In] the last two classes, Integrated 1-2 and Integrated 3-4, there was more crossover on the physical and earth science combined with the biology, whereas now the freshman class is not doing life science,” Slattery said.

Some of the new information being taught is simply the product of moving those concepts to different classes.

“Some of the stuff that students used to learn in 1-2 will be moved to the Living Earth [sophomore] class so there is more of a biology presence throughout the entire year,” Slattery said.

Slattery believes that this new style

being able to express themselves,” Corvi said.

Werner, as part of campus support at Neil Cummins Elementary School, has felt the direct effects of the budget cuts. Werner said the community is deeply saddened by the changes their students are experiencing and the environment at Neil Cummins has experienced an immense shift.

Werner says she feels worried for the future and what it means for kids in terms of extra support and their safety.

“We notice everything about the kids. There is going to be no one watching them, and they will be neglected. The kids are going to suffer,” Werner said.

Though the budget cuts have cause a lot of anger, the staff are more concerned for the students than anything.

According to Werner, the amount of campus staff is to be reduced by half, which means that the remaining teachers will have to work more and there will not be time for teachers to give extra help to the students who need it.

“I can’t explain it. We just know these kids so well; we’re always here for them,” Werner said. kbradley@redwoodbark.org About the Cub Issue The Cub Edition of the Bark is produced by the Nonfiction class with the help of the Bark staff. The Editors-in-Chief for this issue are Ella Green, Sol Ladetzky, Sofi Mincy and Sophia Rocha.

The next regular edition of the Bark will be printed in May.

Photo by Audrey Lightfoot

WALKING THROUGH HIS Physics in the Universe class, Mr. Samet discusses the next lesson. of teaching will benefit students. She acknowledges that the changes might be difficult, but she is confident that most students will enjoy the change.

“When you are trying to teach a class that an entire grade level takes, you’re Continued on page 3

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Page 2 • News

April 5, 2019

Photo Survey What will you miss most about Redwood during Spring Break?

“Learning stuff.”

“That’s a hard one...Mr. Barde.”

“Not gonna lie, I’m not gonna miss anything.”

“I will miss all my good friends.”

Lindsey Beauchamp

Marc Maync

Nikki Orrick

T.J. Ross

freshman

sophomore

junior

senior

Redwood Alumni responds to recent college admissions scandal

By Alex Neupauer Cub Reporter

50 people have been implicated in the recent college admissions scandal investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Of the 50 people charged, 13 were Bay Area parents, and some were from Marin.

William “Rick” Singer is the founder of a for-profit college counseling service in Newport Beach, California called The Key. His facilitation of cheating on college applications played a major role in the scandal. Parents

Photo courtesy of Bobak Ha’Eri

THE UNIVERSITY OF Southern California was one of the schools involved in the recent college admissions scandal.

paid Singer large sums of money to alter their kids’ test scores on college entrance exams including the SAT and ACT, along with inventing fake athletic profiles and bribing admissions officers and coaches with money.

On Friday, March 29, six of the implicated Bay Area parents went to face a judge in Boston on counts of mail fraud, none of which entered a plea.

Redwood alumni Mary Winnick is now a sophomore at the University of Southern California, one of the schools affected by the scandal. The news does not surprise her. “[The scandal] doesn’t surprise me too much because there is a lot of money at this school. A lot of people really want to go here, so people are going to do whatever it takes to get themselves in. I feel like what they were doing was a little bit over the top and definitely crossed some boundaries,” Winnick said.

While the scandal does not shock Winnick, the cheating confuses her amidst the heavy workload of USC. “At this school, I don’t really understand why students would cheat their way into the school, because once you’re here you’re working so hard all the time and it’s not an easy school,” Winnick said. “I’m constantly doing work and I’m constantly studying, and it’s hard to get good grades here. If you’re not the right applicant in the first place, and you’re cheating your way in, you’re probably not going to do well here.”

Melissa Frugé, a USC alumni and parent of two high school students, hopes that more investigations will be conducted.

“We want to learn more. This is just the outbreak of the scandal, so I want [colleges] to do some complete factfinding, tell us what they’re going to do about it, and then

decide how they can ensure that [kids are] getting treated fairly,” Frugé said.

Frugé feels that the illegal actions of the scandal expose the legal, yet unfair, means of college admissions. “[The scandal] also reminds us that there are a lot of other ways that may be unfair for kids to get into college that are actually legal—but are not the traditional good test scores and high academic and extracurricular achievements—for example, making donations to schools,” Frugé said.

While Winnick values honest, hard work, she also worries that the college admissions process is becoming too difficult and kids are pushing themselves too hard.

“My roommate will always say, ‘I don’t know where my kids are going to go to college.’ Because if it’s going to keep getting harder, kids can only push themselves so hard. They do so much to get into a school. So when does it reach the limit, and when are schools going to start loosening up? I just don’t understand where it’s going if it’s going to keep getting harder,” Winnick said.

Frugé calls for reform, seeing the scandal as an opportunity for improvement of the admission process.

“I think we have some ability in light of this scandal to ask more questions than we otherwise would have. I think the universities would do themselves a favor to ask themselves the same questions and seek the right answers and also consider reforms where appropriate,” Frugé said.

aneupauer@redwoodbark.org

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Page 3 • News

• New Science curriculum Continued from page 1 “When you are trying to teach a class that an entire grade level takes, you’re always going to have some kids that love it and dislike it. But overall, I’ve heard really positive things and I anticipate next year we will get the same feedback,” Slattery said.

As predicted by Slattery, there are mixed emotions among the freshmen about the new material. Some students believe the course is a great class to expand their science knowledge, while others dislike the new style of teaching.

Freshman Noah Ong Bamola feels the curriculum fails to live up to the high expectations.

“I enjoy the concept of [Physics in the Universe], but the way it’s taught is somewhat confusing because some of the teaching methods are a little confusing for all the students to understand. We also do a very textbook way of learning. It is a lot of talking at you and you’re expected to take a lot of information in,” Ong Bamola said.

April 5, 2019 Although he is not a fan of Physics in the Universe, Ong Bamola has high hopes for next year and looks forward to the Living Earth class. In contrast, freshman Kaylen Shaw appreciates the current Physics in the Universe class. He enjoys doing labs every week and being able to collaborate with his peers.

Shaw believes that this class is beneficial to students because it mixes old and new concepts, allowing for better understanding and future success in higher science classes.

“We go over some of the stuff that we covered in our previous years of science like inertia and volcanoes, but then we cover things that will prepare us for our future physics classes,” Shaw said.

With significant shifts in topics, the newly implemented science courses will continue to be conducted by freshmen and sophomore teachers.

Photo by Audrey Lightfoot

LISTENING TO SAMET, the Physics in the Universe class focuses on the lesson.

alightfoot@redwoodbark.org

Amazon delivers ‘free’ samples with a hidden cost

By Maya Holland Cub Reporter

Amazon, a trillion-dollar online service company familiar to most, has recently developed a new way to boost revenue. The tactic, known as Prime Samples, involves Amazon shipping unordered products to customers worldwide, purely based on their purchase history.

Donata Maggipinto, an e-commerce professional from Sam’s Club, a sub-company created by Walmart, has worked for a variety of businesses who use online data as well as in-store sampling to drive sales. She is not surprised about the launch of Amazon’s Prime Samples.

“I think everybody is tracking our purchases. I don’t think it’s anything different with the sample program,” Maggipinto said.

The concept of sampling is nothing new to the market, but the tactic that Amazon uses has gone unnoticed since August of last year. Before customers receive the samples, they are unaware they are a target for free products.

According to the Amazon website, the samples as well as the shipping are free. They surprise select customers with “delightful and helpful” samples. Some of the products Amazon sends include KIND bars, Dunkin’ Donuts instant coffee mix, Maybelline mascara and Bulletproof protein powder. Although receiving a surprise package of a favorite product may be appreciated, Amazon fails to mention where they receive their data and how they know what customers will enjoy.

Tarran Pitschka, the owner of Wicked Quick Clothing Company and a vendor on Amazon, points out that tracking customers data is commonly used to boost business.

“I worked with a retailer not unlike Nordstrom, and the buyer that was buying for the men’s department showed me all the graphs of my competition and what was selling …

I could see all the numbers and that’s what I think is going on with a lot of the retailers. They have the information.

They have the data,” Pitschka said.

Because Amazon has access to an abundance of information, there is controversy regarding whether or not their system of sending unannounced, free samples to residents’ doorsteps is an invasion of privacy.

“I can’t say it’s unethical because everyone else is doing it. It’s just the way that companies merchandise their products now,” Maggipinto said.

Kristen and Tane Abbott Margaret Abbott Aaron and Randi Agenbroad The Alexander Family Charles and Kimberly Allen The Alylwin Family Sarah Ames and Peter Bouton Seth and Kelli Anderson Ann Aylwin Lisa Bacino Katheryn Baldwin The Beberman Family Ingrid Becker Cammi Bell Helga Beyer The Blazei Family The Block Family The Blum Family Mari Bowler Donal and Brenda Brown Jason Brown Amy Brugger Liz Brusseau Mary and Ken Bryant Rose and Chuck Bucklar Jennifer Butler Taissa Cherry and Jay Labourene Amy Cifarelli Compass Education Group

Photo by Maya Holland

PARKED OUTSIDE A local Marin County home, Amazon advertises “Amazon Prime” while delivering packages to homes from a minivan.

According to Maggipinto, tracking purchase data is because of the privacy violation.

The website also displays specifically how to opt out simply the price of entry for businesses on the market nowadays. Large companies, especially Amazon and from the sample program. Consumers must first recognize Walmart, use this strategy to get smaller businesses under the program exists, then search through a variety of tabs on the drop down bar to find out which category “samples” their umbrella.

In 2005, Amazon created Prime Now, a branch that fall under.

Though companies are gathering data more frequently, partners with Whole Foods and sends groceries to buyers.

Irina Gero, a four-year Prime Now employee, identifies it is only a matter of time until the process behind the how, although she works for the corporation, she is screen is revealed to the general public.

“Information is key, so anyone can gather the data. unaware why Amazon began the sampling process.

While sampling may dramatically boost business for Apple has access to where you are, where you’re going, Amazon, Gero doubts the Prime Now branch will adopt a and all these companies like Google, Amazon and Apple can see where the businesses are growing. They have the similar marketing strategy.

As stated on the Amazon website, customers are able information,” Pitschka said. to unsubscribe from the process. However, a recent NBC article mentions that, “people feel obliged to reciprocate when someone does something nice for them. In other words, a gift invokes the principle of reciprocation.” In spite of the high likelihood that sampling increases brand loyalty, the company also risks driving customers away mholland@redwoodbark.org

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If you would like to support the Redwood Bark, donations can be made by check and mailed to Redwood High School. Checks should be made payable to the Redwood Bark. See www.redwoodbark.org for an online payment option.

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Page 4

Redwood CEA disappoints in a health-obsessed county

By Martha Fishburne Cub Reporter

Illustration by Tom Fishburne

If you walk down any street in Marin, you can find references to healthy eating. From organic eateries lining the streets to the newest celebrity–endorsed diet trends on social media, healthy eating seems to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind–except at Redwood. Despite the fact that food from the C.E.A. must sustain students until they get home, Redwood’s lunch program mostly offers foods such as chicken nuggets, pizza and hamburgers. It is imperative that the food Redwood sells will actually give students the nutrients they need to get through the rest of the day.

According to Breastcancer.org, healthy eating means “Eating a variety of foods that give you the nutrients you need to maintain your health, feel good and have energy.

These nutrients include protein, carbohydrates, fat, water, vitamins and minerals.”

It should be an easy task to check if Redwood’s lunches fit into this definition of a healthy diet, but nutrition information seems to be kept under lock and key.

As of February, all links to nutritional information on the Redwood website were either out of service or contained information from 2012. When I brought this to the attention of the Student Nutrition Services Director, the outdated links were taken down, but it was made clear that it would take a while for the information to be updated.

Despite this setback, one would assume that all food served to high schoolers would follow the guidelines of the Recommended Daily Allowances (R.D.A.) and Dietary Guidelines for Americans, as well as guidelines provided by the California Department of Education, but in reality, not all of it does.

The Redwood website states, “To ensure we are meeting these requirements, a nutrient analysis is completed for each menu item and the overall week of menu items. Some menu items individually may exceed the requirements so we use a weekly nutrient analysis as the actual guideline since students eat a variety of menu items and the weekly intake is averaged.”

This means that, although as a whole the weekly Redwood menu meets the nutrition requirements, some individual items do not and because of the outdated website, insight into which items follow the guidelines and which do not is unavailable.

Due to the lack of information on the contents of our school lunches, there is no way to ensure that the food is of acceptable quality, which can have potentially detrimental results. According to the Food Revolution Network, the National School Lunch Program provides lunches to students at over 100,000 schools nationwide, including Redwood. Although the lunches must comply with the nutritional standards from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the program provides only $1.30 for schools

to spend on each child, leading to cuts in quality. A 2009 U.S.A. Today investigation concluded that the meat the government provides its students with through this program would not meet the standards of many fast food places, including Kentucky Fried Chicken and Jack in the Box. The benefits of healthy options at lunch outweigh the cost. It has been proven by a study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2017 that healthier school lunches lead to better test scores in schools. In this experiment, researchers analyzed the test scores and school lunch information from all California public schools for five years and found that healthier lunches led to a standardized test score increase of 0.028 standard deviation, which measures how much the test scores vary from the average. While this may not seem like a lot, it adds up across students nationwide.

Teens are in the stage of their lives where they will carry the habits they form now into adulthood, according to a Psychology Today article written

by Carl E. Pickhardt, a psychologist and author of 15 parenting books.

“Practiced daily for so many years, [eating habits] are very hard to change in any permanent way through dieting because one’s psychological and physical systems are so historically opposed to giving them up,” Pickhardt said. “People grow very accustomed to what and how much and how often they like to eat.”

If they have access to healthy alternatives, teens will have the experience of choosing healthier foods which will thus form a habit of healthy eating. On the other hand, teens who are not given that option are less likely to develop these habits, due to their lack of exposure to more nutritious options.

Decision making is a key part of growing up, which is why it is imperative that the students are given the opportunity to make their own decisions regarding what they choose to eat. But students cannot make educated choices if they do not know what is in the food they are consuming at school. Though every sophomore student at Redwood is required to take a nutrition unit in their physical education classes (P.E.), they are then served food that does not follow the guidelines they are taught by the very people who taught them these standards. Although it is possible that the food served in the C.E.A. maintains a level of quality and nutrition, the problem is that we really have no idea and no way to find out. mfishburne@redwoodbark.org

Infographic by Martha Fishburne

Page 5 • Opinion

www.redwoodbark.org

And the verdict is... NRA not guilty for mass shootings

By William Muller Cub Reporter With gun violence in the United States seemingly on the rise, political tensions and conversations regarding guns are becoming increasingly prominent in society.

Second Amendment enthusiasts have taken one side, strongly protecting the constitutional right to bear arms, while anti-constitutional groups such as March For Our Lives and Moms Demand Action have stood on the other.

The issue plagues modern day politics, and left-leaning groups have chosen to place all of the blame on one scapegoat, the National Rifle Association (NRA).

When arguing against the NRA, it is important to know that they do not sell, manufacture or distribute guns. The sole purpose of the association is to protect Americans’ Second Amendment constitutional right to bear arms; the NRA is a civil rights group for all citizens and stops arguably the most important amendment from being infringed upon.

The tradition of blaming the NRA began after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Adam Lanza killed 27 people, including teachers, students and even his own mother. The accusations for this tragedy quickly rotated onto gun activists and even weapons companies like Bushmaster, since Lanza used one of their rifles in the attack. The victims and the families of the Sandy Hook Massacre are currently suing Bushmaster for manufacturing the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle that was used in the shooting. Surprisingly, none of the blame was placed on Lanza’s shoulders.

According to The National Review, Lanza had a long history of mental illness and had even been treated under New Hampshire’s Birth to Three program and in the Yale Child Study Center. It is clear that most mass shooters are not right in their minds, especially when Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at age 13. Someone who was mentally healthy would never commit such an atrocity, making it hard to argue that the NRA should be to blame for incidents such as the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

Furthermore, in a more recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, often referred to as the Parkland shooting, shooter Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 students and staff members. According to CNN, Cruz, similar to Lanza, was placed in a broken home when he was first

adopted as an infant, and his mental state only deteriorated further when his adoptive father died of a heart attack when Cruz was just five years old. According to Psychologist Dr. Peter Langman, 75 percent of shooters of the 25 most cited school shootings since Columbine grew up in broken homes,

Illustration by Mara Farese

which could entail numerous issues a child could have endured, including substance abuse, criminal behavior, domestic violence and child abuse.

Mental illness is clearly the cause of mass shootings, and yet, most anti-gun social justice groups use strong anecdotal evidence and weaponize children in order to shame and guilt the average gun owning American.

Additionally, according to many critics from both political parties, the Parkland attack could have easily been stopped if Stoneman Douglas resource officer Scott Peterson had performed his job correctly. During the attack, he was armed, but instead of using his weapon to protect children, Peterson cowered outside the school as innocent lives were senselessly taken by a madman plagued by mental illness.

Since the Parkland shooting occurred in a very divided political climate due to President Trump’s recent inauguration, there were a lot of activists that arose from this horrible situation. Most of these activists were Democrats advocating for more gun control restrictions, creating the organization March For Our Lives and blaming right-leaning politicians and the NRA.

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However, Kyle Kashuv, a Stoneman Douglas student present during the shooting, did not blame the NRA. He had the courage to confront Peterson after the shooting.

Kashuv had a much better approach to this issue for calling out one of the people that could have stopped the tragedy instead of blaming the NRA that did not have any involvement in any mass shooting.

Increasing gun ownership among “good guys” is one solution to combat shootings, and this can be proven with a shooting in Texas. In November 2017, Devin Patrick Kelly shot numerous churchgoers in a Sutherland Springs church. Fortunately, civilian Stephen Willeford was armed with an AR-15 and quickly pursued the shooter, stopping further tragedy from occurring. This is clear evidence that gun ownership has the potential to save lives.

Mass shootings are horrific incidents that shouldn’t happen to anyone, but the NRA should not be blamed. It is as if a victim of a drunk driving incident blamed car enthusiasts for an accident they did not cause or support in any way. According to the NRA, former Pennsylvania Republican senator Rick Santorum and other Republican leaders, mental illness, broken homes and other additional issues all contribute to these mass shootings. Gun control will not help, as it will only strip rights from law-abiding citizens, something that our founding fathers provided us in the United States Constitution. The only possible solution I see for school security is arming our school’s resource officers, as well as making sure they will be up for the challenge if a shooting ever occurs. There is some hope for our generation and the ones that follow if we demand the protection we deserve. wmuller@redwoodbark.org

Redwood makes the words ‘student’ and ‘athlete’ an uncooperative duo Story and Illustration by Kalyn Dawes Cub Reporter

Walk through any high school and you will find a trophy case commemorating high-achieving sports teams or a plaque paying tribute to national champions in some sport from 20 years ago. At Redwood, the gym walls are covered with pennants honoring the many teams that have won the Marin County Athletic League (MCAL) for their sport or moved on to win the North Coast Section (NCS).

While many look up to these achievements (quite literally, in the gym’s case), few consider the academic struggles that many of these athletes may have endured.

The Redwood community encourages students to compete in athletics representing our school because, in many cases, it reduces stress, increases school spirit and improves both physical and mental health. However, many studentathletes struggle to succeed with high pressures from both sports and school.

While it is possible to excel in both, it is much harder than it needs to or should be. Redwood should make schedules to accommodate student-athletes in order to improve learning, decrease stress and demonstrate that the school does not condone missing classes.

Redwood student-athletes miss one and a half classes every two weeks on average, according to a sample of Redwood athletes from a recent self-reported Bark survey. This means that a three month season will result in a total of nine absences, resulting in two weeks of missed material for any given

class. Especially for Advanced Placement (AP) classes or other lecture-based courses, these absences could have a large impact on the student’s ability to understand the subject, as lectures are, by nature, difficult for most students to make up.

School-related stress has become an increasingly prevalent aspect of a teenager’s life in Marin, mainly due to many high-achieving parents and students’ strong academic drives. Mental health has become one of the main focuses of the Wellness Center on campus, with the school often providing resources and education regarding various disorders linked to academic stress. Ironically, while playing sports is supposed to decrease stress because of the endorphins released while exercising, missing school for sports events has the opposite effect.

For example, I have missed my seventh period of AP European History class almost five times for Redwood varsity girls’ soccer.

Being absent from multiple periods has increased my stress

levels because I constantly feel as if I have missed something and am trying to make up work.

I am surely not the only athlete that has experienced this type of academic stress as a result of athletics. Last season,

there were seven underclassmen on my team, all of whom struggled while missing seventh and even part of sixth period for games, similar to myself.

Though participating in sports is a personal choice, the school has done little to help ease the load.

Chronic truancy, or missing 30 minutes of instruction without an excuse three times during the school year, is a major problem faced by schools across the U.S. This issue could be a possible result of systems like the one currently used at Redwood.

In a survey conducted by St. John Fisher College, 89 percent of teachers agreed that truancy affects student achievement levels in one or more of

their classes.

Allowing and even encouraging students to leave school early could lead students to believe that missing school is permissible. It is particularly important for faculty to discourage all forms of missing school when they have such strict policies on absenteeism. Redwood emphasizes that school should be the top priority, but they can not support that claim when their student-athletes must miss school regularly if they wish to compete on a sports team.

Despite many possible solutions, many

students miss school for athletics because the sun sets so early and the only way to fit in games is to miss seventh period.

However, moving all games to Thursdays and Saturdays could help reduce these avoidable absences. By doing so, students would not have to miss school for warm-ups because of the earlier release at 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon on Thursdays and no school on Saturdays. This would create days designated for home games where students would either be competing in or spectating, which could also increase school spirit and student involvement. Another possible solution is the elimination of physical education (P.E.) as a two year requirement for student-athletes. While this may be an argument in and of itself, eliminating P.E. would allow students to only take six classes, meaning they would not be forced to miss seventh period for athletics.

The choice between school or sports should not be one that studentathletes have to make at Redwood. The administration should make a larger effort to accommodate such a large part of our student body. The name student-athlete implies that one can be both a student and an athlete at the same time. The order also suggests that being a student comes first, as it should, but Redwood needs to make changes in order to ensure that we do not change into athlete-students. kdawes@redwoodbark.org

April 5, 2019 bark Page 6 • Opinion “Dream Crazier” embodies the message it seeks to end Story and Illustration by Nicole Johnson Cub Reporter

“If we dream of equal opportunity, [we’re] delusional,” Serena Williams said as a clip of the U.S. women’s national soccer team played over the soft hum of violins.

The 23-time Grand Slam winner narrates Nike’s most recent installment of dream-oriented advertisements, in which she aids the company in encouraging female athletes everywhere to continue breaking down barriers in the sports world and beyond.

Nonetheless, the flawed portrayal of the women featured fails to empower to the extent it aspires to. The victim mentality presented within the ad can no longer be practiced for true gender equality to exist.

Entitled “Dream Crazier,” the ad first aired at a commercial break during the 2019 Oscars, a product of the advertising agency Wieden and Kennedy. The firm was also responsible for the release of Nike’s controversial “Dream Crazy” advertisement that provoked backlash for alluding to NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the National Anthem. The motivational nature and message of “Dream Crazier” resonated with broad audiences, as men and women alike took to platforms such as Twitter to spread the video and their takeaways.

Although the advertisement serves as a call to action for female athletes everywhere, its method of portraying women as victims is harmful. Williams’ statements paint a picture of the forceful female athlete overcoming traditional gender roles, yet the very stereotypes being “broken” are outdated themselves.

“When [women] stand for something, [they’re] unhinged,” Williams said. “When we’re too good, there’s something wrong with us.”

Women, including Williams, are greatly celebrated for their accomplishments today, and statements claiming otherwise are more harmful than helpful to gender equality efforts. Women today are accepted in most athletic domains, especially in William’s own profession of tennis, making Nike’s commercial a reinforcement of stereotypes that have mostly been reshaped.

A recent self-reported survey conducted by the Bark found that 88 percent of the student population concurs that American women are more equal to men in 2019 than they have been historically. Despite this advancement, women are continually portrayed as victims in American popular culture as blatantly exhibited in “Dream Crazier.”

Women risk undermining their strength and potential in

accepting a victim mentality. The message has an adverse effect and may be reinforcing power dynamics rather than redefining them—if women are continually portrayed as victims, they will continue to be viewed as such.

The #MeToo movement, alongside other notable campaigns such as Equal Pay Today, work to ensure that the women of today do not fall into the customary subordinated role of yesterday. Yet this progress is being met with the common images of subdued women in popular culture today that directly undermine this upward mobility.

Rosemary St. Clair, vice president and general manager of Nike Women, took to the company’s blog to elaborate on women’s sport in this day and age. “[Nike] won’t rest until the answer to the question, ‘Is sport for you?’ shifts from, ‘No, it’s crazy’ to one where all women can emphatically say, ‘Yes, it’s for me,’” St. Clair said.

The question in 2019 should no longer be, “Are sports for women?” This has clearly been answered by the incredible feats of female athletes highlighted in Nike’s ad. Rather, questions regarding the manner in which women are portrayed in mass media must be raised. Yes, as the ad highlights, a woman running a marathon in the 20th century was crazy, but what is “crazy” nowadays is weakening the personas of women through their portrayal as victims which the ad unintentionally does.

This is not to say women do not face persecution on many fronts today—atrocities are committed against females in varying magnitudes on a global scale. However, those that are not “suffering” to great extents, such as Williams, the nation’s highest-paid female tennis player, should not depict themselves as victims in an age when they are far from them.

Regardless of Williams’ standings, massive discrepancies exist on the terms of pay for countless women’s sports in 2019. The U.S. women’s soccer team, despite being victorious in four Olympic championships and in three of the last seven World Cup tournaments, are paid to a significantly lesser degree than their often defeated male counterparts. Led by chief players like Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd, a group of national team players filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation on the terms of “institutionalized gender discrimination” on March 8 of this year.

This is a prime example of an immense stride taken toward equality that doesn’t undermine or imperil women’s strength in the process, and such approaches must continue to be pursued in order to safeguard this furthering equity in the future. Women are truly strong when they do not question their own strength or allow anyone else to do likewise. njohnson@redwoodbark.org

Girl scouts need to change how the cookie crumbles

By Charlie Ginsburg Cub Reporter

At the beginning of the year, weeks after many people begin their New Year’s resolutions to adopt a more healthy lifestyle, cookie season rolls around. Every year from January until April, Girl Scouts across the country set up shop outside grocery stores and go door-to-door selling boxes of America’s favorite cookies.

More than one million Girl Scouts nationwide sell over 200 million boxes of cookies a year, making it an $800 million dollar business. Despite its seasonal selling period, Girl Scout cookies outsell Oreos, Milanos and Chips Ahoy combined, according to the World Economic Forum.

While there is no doubt about the popularity of Girl Scout cookies, it is unclear why an organization whose motto is to “build girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place” would promote products that have serious health implications.

The hidden truth behind everyone’s favorite cookies is that they are packed with unhealthy ingredients that are linked to major health issues. Samoas and Thin Mints currently sold by the Girl Scouts contain notably more toxins than your typical homemade or even store-bought desserts.

At a quick glance, the ingredient list may seem like nothing out of the ordinary.

Nonetheless, when taking a closer look, there are a couple of ingredients that raise concerns: partially hydrogenated oil and glyphosate. Partially hydrogenated oil contains trans fats, while glyphosate is an herbicide.

Health conscious consumers might be aware of the hazards that come from foods that contain artificial trans fats. However, for those who do not know, the main problem with artificial trans fats, according

to the American Heart Association, is that they increase the occurrence of heart attacks, diabetes and strokes. In 2015 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deemed artificial trans fats unsafe and gave companies until June 18, 2018 to completely eliminate the ingredient from their products. The FDA stated in 2015 that thousands of heart attacks and deaths could be avoided annually by removing trans fat from one’s diet.

However, many

companies began to use loopholes in order to avoid removing trans fat from their processed food products. The Environmental Working Group found that 27 percent of of all grocery items contained trans fats, while only two percent of the items disclosed that information. Case in point, while the Girl Scouts claim that their cookies contain “zero trans fats” on their boxes, this is an outright lie. Samoas, one of the more popular flavors, feature partially hydrogenated palm oil containing 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. They

are able to use 0.5 grams of trans fats because while the rule states that cookies must contain “zero trans fats,” the loophole allows companies to use 0.5 grams of the substance and round that number down to zero. While this does comply with the zero trans fat requirement and is FDA compliant, anyone who consumes more than a serving of cookies is consuming an unsafe amount of trans fats and consequently increasing their risk for heart disease along with other related illnesses. Shockingly, the serving size of Girl Scout cookies is two per serving. This is an unrealistic expectation for consumers, as anyone who has eaten the cookies before knows that one tends to have much more than that.

Another unsafe ingredient in the cookies is sugar made from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). The sugar used in their cookies is not natural and is processed through sugar beets, which are sprayed with the chemical herbicide

Illustration by Kalyn Dawes

glyphosate, a known carcinogen, meaning that it has been identified as a potential cause of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

Despite questions around potentially unsafe ingredients, the Girl Scouts have stood firmly with the scientific consensuses favoring their ingredients. On their website, they state that there is “worldwide scientific support for the safety of currently commercialized ingredients derived

from genetically modified agricultural crops.” They also cite the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Medical Association as credible supporters of their position.

Although the Girl Scouts say that science is on their side, California State Law is not. In August 2018, a San Francisco jury awarded DeWayne Johnson, a former school groundskeeper, a $289 million in the judgment (which was later reduced to $79 million) against Monsanto, an agrochemical company. Johnson filed suit against Monsanto, claiming that the company’s famous weed killer, Round Up (which contains glyphosate), gave him terminal cancer. Witnesses who testified for the plaintiff included experts in scientific and medical fields such as oncologists, hematologists, dermatologists, professors in epidemiology and toxic substance directors. Backed by scientific data, this ruling shows the indisputable link between glyphosate and cancer, and also suggests that Girl Scout cookies ingredients must be changed now, before someone’s health is at serious risk.

The Girl Scouts of America preach leadership and advocacy to their young members through their cookie selling.

The organization claims on their boxes that selling the cookies helps girls develop fundamental skills such as goal setting, decision making and people skills.

Now the organization itself has a chance to show the world what kind of leaders they are by removing life-threatening ingredients from their Girl Scout cookies.

cginsburg@redwoodbark.org

Page 7 • Opinion

www.redwoodbark.org

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Redwood High School 395 Doherty Drive Larkspur, CA 94939 www.redwoodbark.org Editors-In-Chief Ella Green Sofi Mincy Sol Ladetzky Sophia Rocha Copy Editors Maxanne Anderson Taylor Caron Martha Fishburne Francesca Fox Olivia Kharrazi Shannon Watridge Illustration by Kalyn Dawes

editorial Adolescents face apalling injustices behind bars Major issues for minors

POLICY: All editorials are unsigned and have been approved by the majority of the Bark staff.

A 14-year-old cannot legally obtain a driver’s license or watch an R-rated movie. They cannot vote in an election or purchase alcohol. They cannot buy lottery tickets, join the military or own property. But in the United States, they can be tried as an adult and spend their life behind bars.

Currently, only 1,200 minors are housed in juvenile facilities, while 10,000 minors are in adult facilities. According to The Economist, the number of adolescents registered in adult prisons increased by approximately 230 percent between 1990 and 2010.

The core of this issue lies in the fact that, while adolescents’ and adults’ decisions are sometimes judged within the same justice system, adolescent brains have not developed to the extent of adult brains.

According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the brain continues to mature well into one’s twenties. The prefrontal cortex, the decisionmaking section of the brain, does not finish developing until about the age of 25. The reasonable solution for different stages of brain development should be different consequences for criminal activity. However, the current system allows for the same punishments to be given to both parties. Neuroscientific discoveries played a major role in the decision to eliminate the death penalty for minors in 2005, yet the system failed to make the same decision in regards to incarceration.

Minors who make poor decisions are often not able to fully consider the consequences for their actions, thus the developmental state of the adolescent’s brain should be taken into deeper consideration when determining proper discipline.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative, adolescents sent to adult facilities instead of juvenile facilities are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted and 36 times more likely to commit suicide in the years following imprisonment. Minors continue to be subjected to an environment that endangers their physical and mental well-being, despite the majority of them not endangering their potential inmates.

Besides damaging their physical and mental health, minors incarcerated in adult prisons face another issue: adolescents sent to these facilities are forever tarnished with a permanent mark on their record.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the rate of unemployment among formerly incarcerated people is 27 percent. By comparison, the unemployment rate of the general population in the U.S. is 3.8 percent, according to Trading Economics. Additionally, children put into the adult criminal justice system are

A BARK to actress Emilia Clarke for battling two brain aneurysms while acting in Game of Thrones. This queen slays on and off screen.

A BITE to the fake Bieber pregnancy. Baby, baby, baby, nooo.

A BARK to Olivia Jade losing her Sephora collaboration... that’s something she can’t makeup.

A BITE to Michael Jackson for being accused of sexual abuse; so much for being a “smooth criminal.”

A BARK to Jordan Peele’s

34 percent more likely to be re-arrested compared to those in the juvenile system.

It is cheaper to send youths to state facilities than to develop services to help rehabilitate these teenagers, according to the Justice Policy, a national nonprofit organization working to promote justice.

Judges are often faced with no alternative other than to send minors to adult facilities because of the lack of financial means to pay for other options. By doing so they are placing money at a higher importance than the psyche of criminal adolescents. They are allowed to make these calls because Proposition 57, passed in 2016, gave judges the option to choose whether or not dependents as young as 14 should be tried in adult court.

Although it may seem like a solution to this financial dismay is unlikely, some states and counties have been able to fix this problem by implementing programs that replace proctor court cases.

Adolescents in this system are usually sentenced with a type of community service instead of a permanent mark on their record. In Marin County, a rehabilitation program called Restorative Justice has been established. Jake Blum, a Redwood junior, has been working with Restorative Justice for close to three years.

“The goal is really just to help kids learn from their mistakes and give back to their community rather than being punished,” Blum said. “It’s about re-integrating these kids into the community.”

The main purpose of the criminal justice system is to remove dangerous felons from society. In contrast, the goal of the juvenile section of the justice system is to advise children to make better decisions in their future, offering rehabilitation and a chance at success. When the two systems overlap, the goals of each become conflated and are no longer effective. A 14-year-old is not seen as an adult in the eyes of our society, and for that reason it is clearly unjust that the justice system views them as one.

Have an opinion regarding anything that appears in the Bark or in general? We encourage our readers to submit letters to the editor. Letters to the Bark should be 500 words or fewer, typed if possible and signed. They must be submitted to room 177 or in the Bark mailbox in the facility. They may also be emailed to bark@redwoodbark.org.

“Us.” That movie killed!

A BITE to the upcoming live action “Dora the Explorer” movie. We won’t be needing a map to our nearest theater.

A BARK to Texas Tech for reaching the Final Four for the first time in school history.

At least one Raiders team is doing well!

A BITE to McDonald’s McPickle burger April Fools prank. Customers sure weren’t “lovin’ it.”

A BARK to Lyft for going public; their employees will be Uber rich.

A BITE to Netflix raising their prices next month. Netflix and chill? More like Netflix and bills.

A BARK to underclassmen getting to sleep in this week.

Redwood should dream up more ideas like this.

A BITE to Cardi B’s scandalous past... those men sure didn’t like it like that.

BARKS and BITES are the collective opinions of the BARK staff concerning relevant issues. BARKS are in praise of accomplishments, while BITES criticize decisions or events.

News Editors Matheus Ferro Ashley Kraynak Opinion Editors Claire Henry Nicole Johnson Jack Watson Feature Editors Greta Cifarelli Maya Holland Anna Silverman Sports Editors Emma Lightfoot Jacob Mandel Aiko Nahas Review Editors Devin Bosley Jackson Epps Mady Gordon Lifestyles Editors Isabel Ames Camille Ray Alli Runnfeldt Video Editors Hudson Hitchcock Tenzing Kalsang Spanish Editor Loughlin Browne Clariss Garcia Business Manager Morgan Bello Survey Managers Keadan Bradley PJ Pfeiffer Art Consultants Kalyn Dawes Mara Farese Reporters Tali Callan Hugo Cisneros Diego Clavijo Charlie Ginsburg Pato Harris Kylie Horstmeyer Mia Kessinger Audrey Lightfoot Griffin McBride Will Muller Alex Neupauer Katie Parsons Dastan Riazati Alice Robinson Niki Sadeghi William Schultz Sofia Skager Izzy Skov Shelby Weingart Adviser Lisa Kemp

español

Página 8

Estudiante de Marin lucha contra Trump sobre el derecho de migrar Por Loughlin Browne Reportera de Cub

Crista Ramos se describe como una chica tímida y tranquila en sus clases en Marin Catholic High School, pero a pesar de su comportamiento reservado, ella levanta su voz por las cosas importantes: su nombre está embrollado en un debate internacional sobre la inmigración que la ha llevado ella de California al Vaticano a DC. Antes de la administración de Trump, la vida de la familia Ramos era muy normal. Ella pasaba tiempo con sus amigas, iba a conciertos, e iba a la escuela. Como muchos estudiantes en Marin, su madre es una inmigrante de El Salvador. Su familia no se preocupaba sobre el estado legal de su madre, Crystal Ramos, quien ha vivido en los Estados Unidos desde que tenía doce años. Sin embargo, a principios de 2018, la administración de Trump revocó el Estatus De Protección Temporal (TPS) para Salvadoreños.

Esto significó que Crystal tendría hasta septiembre de 2019 para salir de los estados unidos, si sus hijos vienen con ella o no.

Para la familia Ramos, la terminación de TPS era una

gran sorpresa.

“Recibí un texto de una amiga, diciendo ‘has oído las noticias?’” Crystal recordó.

“Ni siquiera sabía qué era el TPS antes de que fuera cancelado,” Crista dijo. “No le conté a nadie en la escuela lo que le estaba pasando a mi familia porque no pensé que lo entenderían ... Ahora que estoy en la escuela secundaria, sólo algunos de mis amigos lo saben.”

La familia Ramos siempre tenían una pasión por la justicia social, y Crystal y Crista decidieron representar a las familias separadas en un juicio del ACLU contra la administración de Trump. Crista lucha por 200,000 otros chicos en los estados unidos que necesitaran tomar una decisión imposible si piden apelación: dejar sus vidas para ir a un país al cual nunca han visitado, o quedarse en los Estados Unidos sin sus familias. Ella asiste a foros, marchas y reuniones para compartir su historia y crear conciencia.

“El caso es en el Noveno circuito de corte California.

Foto por Loughlin Browne [A diferencia de DACA], no es en la Casa, así el Congreso HABLANDO EN UN foro con su madre, Crista Ramos no le afecta. Pero si perdimos el [demanda judicial], el caso describe su visita al Vatican. va al Corte Suprema,” José Mejía explicó, un organizador de la comunidad quien ella ha tenido una gran trabaja guarder TPS. influencia con personas Crista dice que las poderosas e importantes familias involucradas en igualmente. En los últimos el caso han enfrentado la dos años, ella ha viajado discriminación. al Vaticano para obtener “Había un artículo el apoyo del Papa y ayudó escrito para ayudar crear una marcha en la y concienciar en su capital. A pesar del apoyo comunidad, y me de las organizaciones mostraron que abajo, en grandes las cuales ayudan los comentarios, dijeron con las legalidades, la única cosas racistas como ayuda para las familias en el ‘alienígena’ y ‘deben estar limbo proviene de esfuerzos en prisión.’ No supimos de bases pequeños. En un qué hacer… habíamos Crista Ramos, foro de sesentas receptores visto la discriminación estudiante de Marin Catholic de TPS, sus familias y con otras personas, en la muchos voluntarios, Crista tele, pero este era nuestras repite que le dijo el Papa el familias,” Crista dijo*. pasado octubre: “Migrar es Mientras aún muchos un derecho humano.” de los amigos de Crista no saben sobre su activismo, lbrowne@redwoodbark.org

Habíamos visto la discriminación con otras personas, en la tele, pero este era nuestras familias.

Foto de “National TPS Alliance”

VIAJÓ AL VATICAN en octubre de 2018 presentar el caso al Papa.

Redwood incluye una nueva estudiante de El Salvador Por Clariss Garcia Reportera de Cub

Muchas personas se han mudado a un estado o a un país nuevo, pero imagínense viajar 2.785 millas a un país extranjero y esperar que lo consideren su hogar.

Katherine Huerra, una estudiante de primer año de 16 años, se mudó de El Salvador a Marin County para reunirse con su familia.

Huerra vivió en El Salvador con su abuela por 16 años hasta que su madre decidió que era hora de traerla a los Estados Unidos y comenzar una nueva vida. Huerra

quería quedarse en la comodidad de El Salvador, pero ella reunió su coraje y se mudó a su nuevo hogar.

La profesora de español AP, Debbie McCrea, que trabaja con hablantes no nativos de inglés como Huerra.

“Les enseñamos sobre la cultura estadounidense, como la comida y los días festivos,” McCrea dijo.

Hay algunas diferencias en las que Huerra no pensó, como la comida. Un país nuevo trae nuevos platos y cocinas, algunos de los cuales sorprendieron a Huerra. Esperaba comer un plato

Foto por Clariss Garcia

CELEBRANDO UN DIA especial, su cumpleaños, en la escuela con su familia, amigos y maestros.

salvadoreño típico, como las pupusas (una tortilla de maíz espesa rellena con queso y carne), pero se sintió decepcionada cuando se dio cuenta de que no son tan fáciles de conseguir como en El Salvador.

“He probado nuevas comidas, pero no es como en El Salvador porque no hay nada,” Huerra dijo.

La escuela también ha sido un ajuste para Huerra. En El Salvador, ella era una alumna de secundaria, pero como las escuelas estadounidenses enseñan diferentes planes de estudio, fue retenida y ahora tiene que repetir el primer año, mientras aprenden nueva información en un nuevo idioma. El horario escolar también era diferente en El Salvador, donde Huerra empezaba la escuela a las siete de la mañana y salía a las doze o una de la tarde. Luego tenía todo el día para terminar la tarea y pasar tiempo con su familia o amigos. Sin todo el tiempo que solía tener, se siente como si todo fuera apresurado.

“Aquí empezamos muy temprano y acabamos tarde,” Huerra dijo.

Sin embargo, para Huerra, no es la cultura lo más difícil de acostumbrarse, sino el idioma. Huerra y muchos de sus amigos no hablan inglés, al menos lo suficiente, y tienen problemas para expresarse y comunicarse con otras personas que no hablan español. Afortunadamente, McCrea trabaja con estudiantes que no hablan inglés, y Huerra dice que ella es su maestra favorita debido a toda la ayuda que le brinda. McCrea proporciona un espacio para que Huerra y sus amigos puedan pasar el rato durante las vacaciones escolares, pero el aspecto social de la escuela ha resultado difícil.

“[Los estudiantes] pueden simplemente sonreírles, hacer que se sientan incluidos cuando están cerca, creo que eso les ayudaría mucho,” McCrea dijo.

Huerra y los otros estudiantes sienten que están excluidos del resto de la escuela debido a su falta de conocimiento sobre lo que está sucediendo. Se mantienen unidos porque se sienten más cómodos el uno con el otro.

“Me gusta quedarme con mis amigas pero también me gusta estar con otros niños que no hablan español,” Huerra dijo.

El desarrollo del idioma inglés (ELD, por sus siglas en inglés) es una de las clases que Huerra tiene con McCrea y dijo que eso le ayuda a que ella y a sus compañeros que no hablan inglés aprendan lo que está sucediendo. McCrea señaló que ese plan de estudios alternativo era muy útil para Huerra y sus amigos.

“Enseñamos inglés de la misma manera que aprendes español, también les enseñamos cosas que pueden ayudarles en otras clases,” McCrea dijo. “Creo que eso es parte del éxito [de Huerra].”

Huerra sueña con ser abogada y agradece la ayuda que le proporciona Redwood.

“Yo creo que [Redwood] me puede ayudar a llegar allí porque aquí me enseñan inglés, es algo que no recibí en El Salvador,” Huerra dijo.

Huerra se acomodado a su vida en los Estados Unidos, pero todavía hay días que extraña la vida que tuvo en El Salvador.

Pero con todas las oportunidades que los Estados Unidos le ofrece ella prefiere quedarse aquí. cgarcia@redwoodbark.org

feature

Page 9

Kiki, do you understand the influence of social media challenges?

By Katie Parsons Cub Reporter

“I didn’t really realize at the time how long I was actually unconscious,” sophomore Becca Falk said, reflecting on a video where she attempted the popular social media Pass-Out challenge, where the person who attempts it faints by hyperventilating into a closed fist.

Other potentially dangerous viral dares include the Momo challenge, which consists of committing acts of self-harm, swallowing cinnamon without liquids, and dancing outside of a moving vehicle in the “In My Feelings” challenge. Although videos of people jumping out of cars and dancing to popular songs may earn likes and views on various sites, the phenomenon of social media challenges may pose a danger to teens worldwide.

However, in certain cases, social media challenges raise awareness for important causes, such as the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Ice Bucket challenge, which encourages people of all ages to pour a bucket of ice water over themselves or make a charitable donation to ALS foundations. The challenge skyrocketed through mainstream culture as each person nominated selected another three people to participate. According to the ALS Association, over 17 million people participated in the challenge. While this challenge may not have posed a threat, other dares including the Pass-Out challenge have.

Falk has experienced the consequences of attempting social media challenges firsthand. At the end of her eighth grade year, the Pass-Out challenge was extremely popular.

“At first I saw one of my friends doing it, and then they showed me some videos of it online. I thought it was weird, but I wanted to try it,” Falk said.

Unaware of the danger she was putting herself in, Falk decided to try the dare alone on her bed. Fainting almost immediately, Falk nearly hit her head on the headboard and fell unconscious for almost 45 seconds.

Rewatching the video of herself fainting that she sent to a group chat of friends, Falk became aware of the possible consequences.

“You don’t really know which way you were going to fall. If I had fallen off the bed, or into my wall, I could’ve really hurt myself,” Falk said.

The Pass-Out challenge was not the only dangerous viral challenge; recently, one based off of a Japanese urban legend has surfaced. The Momo challenge has spread around Facebook and Instagram. Momo is a birdlike female demon with bulging eyes and an inverted nose. The challenge coerces children into performing potentially harmful acts ranging from contacting an unknown number to commiting suicide, under the threat that Momo will kill them. The online hoax was extremely

Photo illustration by Jackson Epps

WATCHING THEIR PEERS, teens partake in viral challenges on social media platforms, such as Instagram or Snapchat.

Photo illustration by Katie Parsons

PARTICIPANTING IN A choreographed dance to Drake’s hit song, “In My Feelings,” alongside a moving car for the popular challenge. concerning to parents, including those at Neil Cummins Elementary School. In turn, the topic of online safety has become a more widespread topic in the news and schools.

Alarmed by the challenge, Patty Flynn Elliot, principal of Neil Cummins Elementary School, sent out an email on March 1 regarding the Momo challenge. In the email, she explained how students were scared of the challenge and informed parents on how it was being spread around the school, even to students who do not have access to screens at home. While urging parents to limit screen time at home, additional measures are being taken at the school.

“The explanation for students that we will reinforce is that Momo is a virus and it is a lie. We will underscore that it is not true. We will tell students that they should not do anything that a stranger is telling them to do, and nothing bad will happen to them if they don’t listen to that stranger,” Elliot said in the email.

Although the Momo challenge was a hoax, widely spread videos such as the cinnamon challenge have resulted in other health issues. Brought to social media attention

by YouTuber GloZell Green, the cinnamon challenge entails swallowing a tablespoon of cinnamon without any liquids. According to the NY Times, since gaining popularity, over 2.4 million people have attempted it and posted their videos.

Cinnamon coats and dries the mouth and throat, so swallowing a large amount without liquids can lead to health issues. The immediate result is forceful coughing and gagging, however, in serious cases, it can lead to breathing problems and even a collapsed lung, according to CBS News.

Mohammad Diab, The Chief of Pediatric Orthopedics at UCSF, is aware of the issues the cinnamon challenge can cause.

“If you put cinnamon in your throat or if it should get into your lungs, you’re going to start secreting all kinds of fluids through your throat lining to dilute the cinnamon.

If it gets into your lungs, you’re going to excrete fluid into your lungs. That’s when people say they ‘drowned their lungs’ and you’re going to have trouble breathing,” Diab said.

The effects of attempting the cinnamon challenge were widespread. According to a report conducted by Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in 2011, the American Association of Poison Control Centers received 51 calls related to the “cinnamon” challenge.

Then, in the first six months of 2012, the number of calls rose to 178. Thirty of those incidents were harmful enough to require medical attention.

People were also oblivious to life-threatening hazards when last summer’s hit song by Drake, “In My Feelings.”

When the song first came out, people started jumping out of moving vehicles and dancing in the middle of the road. Celebrity participation from Will Smith, Millie Bobby Brown and Odell Beckham Jr. brought caught the attention of their millions of followers. The #inmyfeelingschallenge on Instagram currently has over 700 thousand posts of people participating in the challenge.

According to an article by the New York Post, 18-year-old Anna Worden from Iowa was critically injured after being hit by a car in July of 2018 while attempting the “In My Feelings” challenge. Her injuries were so severe that she was placed in the ICU and later had to re-learn how to walk.

Falk understands that the prevalence of social media has lead to an increasing amount of pressure on young adults and children who long for affirmation through likes and views.

“Know that [by not attempting these challenges] you are just saving yourself and there’s no need to do it to impress other people. Depending on the challenge, I recommend people doing their research first and figure out exactly what it is, and if it’s harmful, to stay away from it,” Falk said.

kparsons@redwoodbark.org

Marin teachers move out

By Anna Silverman Cub Reporter

Ten miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge with perfectly temperate weather, beautiful landscapes and an economy on the rise, Marin appears to be the idyllic place to live. However, the workforce of educators that enhance Marin’s desirability often lack the privilege to enjoy it. Oftentimes, Bay Area teachers can only appreciate it from nine to five, after which they must commute back to their more affordable homes outside of the county in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Redwood Advanced Placement Economics teacher Paul Ippolito is well-versed in Bay Area housing trends, especially those that affect him as an educator.

“You have two groups of teachers here, generally speaking,” Ippolito said. “[There are] teachers who bought a pretty small house a while ago and, given the pretty high salaries at Redwood High School, if you bought your house a long time ago, you can live in Marin and be okay … But at today’s prices, there’s no chance of a young teacher buying a house in Marin without help.”

Ippolito lives in Petaluma, and attributes his ability to live there solely to his previous job on Wall Street.

“I can only live a nice economic life because I brought my money from New York. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” Ippolito said.

According to Transparent California, a website containing teacher salaries for districts across the state, the starting annual wage at Redwood for less experienced teachers often starts at $60,000 and can extend upwards of $100,000. The average salary for teachers around the rest of the country often levels off at $60,000. However, with a median home price of $908,800 in Marin according to community ranking website Niche, Marin’s higher wages barely make a dent.

Redwood graphic design teacher Nicole Mortham understands this struggle all too well as the majority of housing available in Marin well exceeds her budget. Mortham moved from Sacramento, where she worked at her local school district without any financial issues.

“In

S a c r am e nt o, I was able to live comfortably.

I had a three-bedroom, one-bath house that I owned by myself and then when I chose to move to Marin, at first I was very excited because it was actually a pretty significant pay increase but when it came to the comparison of living expenses, it wasn’t enough to live,” Mortham said. “I went from being in Sacramento, owning a three-bedroom house to living in an apartment in San Francisco with four roommates … And that costs about the same as my [current] mortgage.”

Mortham says her five years spent teaching in the district along with taking on more classes has helped her to sustain her current lifestyle in Fairfax. However, her housing situation is still not optimal for her.

“I’m much more comfortable now that I’m much farther over and down on the payscale, but I still spend half of my paycheck on my mortgage,” Mortham said.

Marin’s housing crisis is due to the lack of housing paired with the attraction of living in the area, raising prices as the number of homes on the market falls. And, according to Robert Eyler, an economics professor at Sonoma State University, that number will continue to decrease due to demand not being met by supply.

“With a thousand people who want to live in a hundred [homes], prices are going to rise,” Eyler said.

The issue of supply and demand is one very familiar to the Bay Area. According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of jobs in California increased by three million in the last decade.

In spite of this, the number of new housing permits issued fell to a quantity of 635,000, creating an abundance of workers but a lack of places to house them. This leads to the need to buy a home outside o f the county and commute in daily, a lifestyle c o m m o n a m o n g R e d w o o d teachers.

“I know m o r e teachers that live in cities 45 minutes to an hour and a half away than I know that live in and around M a r i n ,” Mortham said.

William C a r n e y, president o f

Sustainable San Rafael, works to promote practices of economic and environmental sustainability. One of the main issues they prioritize is housing affordability for the general public.

“We are, locally and regionally, in a housing crisis and particularly for housing that is affordable at a wide range of income levels. That has a very deleterious effect on the economic and human community because it means that we’re losing diversity in our community widely,” Carney said. “Using the ecological model, we don’t believe that systems survive very long or sustain themselves into the future without diversity.”

The cost of living in the Bay Area is a pressing issue without a clear solution, and its effects upon the community are already evident. Sustainable Marin is one of the organizations pushing for lower-cost housing, but its mission is being derailed by the direction of the economy. With prices expected to continue rising, affordable housing is not something that is necessarily in Marin’s future.

Rachel Percival, a realtor at Vanguard Properties, attests to the county’s sustainability but notices issues growing b e n e a t h Ma r i n’s façade of wealth.

“They can’t build enough new houses to meet the demand that would be required … I think it’s always going to be a case of demand outstripping supply,” Percival said. “It’s just basic economics that the house prices are going to stay high.”

According to Carney, this means Marin will continue to drive out any semblance of a local workforce, something that is vital to sustainability and diversity within a community.

Diversity is necessary for the natural world, but its absence in society has an equally detrimental effect; declining representation of people other than those who can afford to live in Marin significantly affects the county’s cultural and economic environment.

Economic sustainability depends on the ratio of supply to demand and whether they are balanced enough to enable further economic growth. In Marin, the demand to work in the county is almost as high as the demand to live in it, and paired with employer desirability, this creates a very stable economy.

However, its high appeal raises prices and raises the question of for whom is Marin actually sustainable.

In Marin, the economy is continuing to grow, but the diversity of the population and its culture are being lost in its wake as more and more are driven out.

“The increase in pay that the district offers, while I’m very grateful for it, doesn’t keep up with the cost of living in the area,” Mortham said. “Cost of living and salary make a huge impact on where I’m willing to work because I want to be able to

Illustration by Anna Silverman

as prices move up spend money on things like trips and activities, and if all of my money is constantly just going to a space to stay it’s not sustainable and it’s not enjoyable.

Although Marin has so much to offer, if you don’t have any money to go out and enjoy it, what’s the point?”

Economists agree that the only way to lower housing costs i n Marin is to build more apartment complexes, increasing the number of living spaces and decreasing the demand. However, many current

residents are opposed to this idea, partly due to the effect that it would have on local traffic. More housing guarantees more people, and more people guarantee more cars on the road. Inherently, this poses the question of where residents want their traffic: congesting the streets of Marin or congesting the freeways headed out of it. It also raises the question of how much the community actually cares about retaining their teachers.

One effort being made toward localizing educators is in t h e

Mountain View Whisman school district in Santa Clara, which has median home prices of close to $1.5 million—even higher than those of Marin, according to their website. The district is commencing a $56 million project to construct a 144-unit extension on a current apartment complex for teacher rentals at $1,500 a month, which is over $1,300 less than the median one-bedroom rent for the county.

“Considering that living expenses are cited as the number o n e reason why we lose staff members, t h i s partnership w i l l u lt imately b e n e f i t

our students, families and the greater community,” superintendent Dr. Ayindé Rudolph said on the district website.

Developments like these throughout the Bay Area could help to stop the phenomenon of teachers not being able to afford housing local to schools, which will help to maintain teachers in the long run, something Redwood struggles with.

“They might come here for a while if they’re willing to rent and live in a communal setting because it’s an exciting area, but t h e y ’r e not going to stay here and raise kids. I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t think the school could pay enough to make that happen,” Ippolito said.

To lower Marin’s housing cost, mass building of apartment complexes in cheaper regions of the county is necessary. However, a partnership with the county and real estate developers similar to that of Mountain View may help to retain a community of local teachers. This project has other future applications as well, such as the possibility for extension towards other lowerwage community workers.

In order to keep our teachers and rebuild a diverse community of local workers, it’s up to Marin to decide where to place their priorities: the residents or their educators.

asilverman@redwoodbark.org

April 5, 2019 bark Page 12 • Feature How a digital footprint walks all over your résumé

By Izzy Skov Cub Reporter

A group of high school students congregate around a ping pong table with red solo cups placed in triangles at each end of the table. As the festivities continue, someone snaps a photo to capture the night. The photo claims its place on Instagram. Weeks pass by and the photo is forgotten about, but it never truly disappears.

Teen activity on social media has the potential to negatively impact them in five, 10 and even 20 years.

When teens post on social media, they leave behind a digital footprint. Social media is a large platform for teens to connect with each other, but a single post can convey the wrong message and leave a lasting impact on their future.

On Saturday, March 2, a group of students from Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, Calif., posted a photo of 10 of their peers gathered around red solo cups in the shape of a swastika. The students, both male and female, were pictured with their arms outstretched in the Nazi salute. By the following morning, the photo had already sparked outrage across several popular social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram and news outlets such as the Washington Post and The New York Times.

Autumn Moore, a junior at Newport Harbor who did not make an appearance at the party, feels the entire community is paying for the actions made by a single group of students.

“Ten kids at our school did this and now our whole community is shamed for it. It’s forever going to be our image … It’s really making everybody think about what they post on social media and how they want themselves to be viewed,” Moore said.

Moore saw the Snapchat story first-hand. She felt

horrible, but also felt a sense of relief knowing she was not directly connected to the photo. As a whole, Newport Harbor has a goal to improve its campus community and fix its broken image.

“All of us as a community have started to realize how terrible the situation was and how we need to fix the image of our school … I honestly think this is going to follow our school around for a very long time,” Moore said.

I n addition to negatively impacting outsiders’ views of the school, t h i s anti-semitic gesture at a teenage party will likely affect a guuilty students’ credibility when applying for jobs in Illustration by Mara Farese the future. According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and an estimated 43 percent of employers use social media to check on current employees.

Local Marin employer Rachelle, who requested that her last name and employment location remain anonymous, believes it is important to vet social media before hiring. However, sometimes the information from social media cannot be used to investigate an employee, so her company does not check social platforms.

“There are things that are protected under the law and

reasons that [the company] can’t discriminate against somebody, so when you are looking on someone’s social media you might also find things you cannot use against them,” Rachelle said.

Lars Christensen, the assistant superintendent of Tamalpias Union High School District, is in charge of hiring Redwood staff. Unlike Rachelle’s company, Christensen considers inspecting social media a necessary part of background checks during the hiring process.

“We do [check social media] and I will say that there have been times when we have seen posts that make us pause, and may make us go in a different direction,” Christensen said.

According to Christensen, the accessibility of the potential employee’s platform makes evaluating social media easy to implement in the hiring process.

“When you put something on social media, it’s there for the world to see, and therefore you risk judgement when you’re [posting],” Christensen said.

Nonetheless, Christensen and his team believe that a co-worker’s life should remain private.

“We don’t want to pry into someone’s personal life because it’s personal … At the same time, when you are a public employee there comes some added responsibilities,” Christensen said.

For similar reasons, Moore believes that students at Newport Harbor should be careful when posting on social media now, because it can affect them in the future. As Christensen explains, it will be traced back to you in the workforce. Although a picture may appear temporary, certain actions on social media have lasting consequences.

“Background checks have been around since time began. Typically, you call former employers and so forth, but social media platforms give us a little more insight,” Christensen said. iskov@redwoodbark.org

Internships offer career exploration and vital experience

By Shannon Watridge Cub Reporter

With the school year coming to a close, many students are scrambling to plan out their summers. Finding time to intern or volunteer is difficult when juggling a paying job, family vacation and sports.

However, students are often unaware of the internship programs provided by the Tamalpias School District (TUHSD).

TUHSD offers an opportunity for students to demonstrate their talents and learn about potential careers, with the summer

internship application due Friday, May 3 at Redwood’s College and Career Center. The program offers a multitude of internships by partnering with local businesses, ranging from healthcare to engineering. It can also give students an advantage over other applicants in both college and job applications.

The Redwood Summer Internship Packet, which can be found in the College and Career Center, explains that internships are an extremely valuable asset for a student’s future. According to the packet, students participating are able to

Photo courtesy of Sutter Portner

PORTNER (CENTER) ATTENDS her internship at Marin General, wearing her uniform and badge.

have hands-on skills in the workplace, on top of applying their knowledge in a real world setting.

Redwood school-to-career liaison, Greg Davison, works at the College and Career center every Tuesday and is a critical source of information for all students. He partners with local businesses to find the best options for students looking to expand their expertise. “[Internships] are always evolving. We are always reaching out for more in the community,” Davison said. “We also offer job shadows and academies as we partner with the College of Marin, so when I have too many students for healthcare, we now have a couple of healthcare academies.”

Davison is not alone in regards to his advocacy for internships. Redwood senior Sutter Portner applied for a summer internship at Marin General after taking physiology her sophomore year. Through the internship, she found a passion for healthcare. “[Internships are] a good way of knowing if you really want to do something because you are put directly into the work environment that you will possibly go into in the future,” Portner said.

Colleges may be the first to evaluate a student’s résumé, but they are not the only ones who appreciate high school internships.

Lupe Romo is the Senior Talent Acquisition Partner in the Human Resources department of Credit Karma, a personal finance company located in San Francisco. While Romo understands that there are certain roles students are not exposed to until college, he feels that internships are valuable in the college application process and benefit the student once they apply for jobs after college.

“That high school [internship] may enable [a student] to get into college. It can be the differentiator for the college for a degree that relates to the internship, so it’s almost a ripple effect in that sense,” Romo said.

Romo also believes that the workplace requires professionalism that is only acquired through experience.

“Having a sneak peek into that world at a high school level and anything that exposes you to that environment is totally beneficial to the high school student.

Candidates will be looked at differently in terms of their investment in their development and whatever sets themselves apart,” Romo said.

Davison prepares students for meeting prospective employers by helping to write cover letters and conducting mock interviews and presentations about the particular internship. Summer interns are required to attend a weeklong College of Marin course called Back to Evolutions where they learn about career options and create LinkedIn accounts. The students begin their internships on June 17 and are expected to complete a minimum of 52 hours on site by July 26. Davison can award students with high school credit depending on the amount of time invested in the internship.

Given only five to 10 percent of internships offer a salary, Davison understands that some students have limited opportunities and cannot spend time working at an unpaid internship.

He believes that paying jobs are just as valuable.

“In this era, it is really important to realize that a job at Starbucks is just as good as some of my internships. Having that work experience is important,” Davison said. “My point is that every internship is going to be what you put into it and it’s a great experience, but you need to make that effort to be self-accountable. I expect students to own it, not [their] parents, and each individual will bring a unique skill set and perspective.”

According to Davison, hundreds of students have used Redwood’s internship program, many of them discovering fields of interest they want to pursue. Portner expresses immense gratitude for her internship and recommends that students follow in her footsteps.

“I say just go for it. You don’t have to have a certain career in mind. It’s just something fun and something you can apply to your résumé for college and jobs where it looks really good. It’s just what you make out of it,” Portner said.

swatridge@redwoodbark.org

Page 13 • Sports

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Isabella Heinemann races her way to Regionals

By Taylor Caron Cub Reporter

In the snow-dusted mountains of Tahoe, athletes like Isabella Heinemann enthusiastically prepare for the ski racing season. When the last bell rings on Friday, Heinemann greets the weekend with open arms, eager to reach the mountains. Each weekend, she begins the four-hour drive up to Tahoe in anticipation of her upcoming practices before regionals.

Isabella has been ski racing for the Far West League, a competitive ski racing association in Tahoe, for the last five years. She began as a child, racing on the development team where she learned the inner workings of the sport. Since then, Isabella has advanced enough to be able to compete in a professional league, Far West, where she now practices racing down mountains through gates at high speeds.

“I have basically been skiing my entire life. When I was little, my parents put me on these little plastic skis and just stuck me in the cross country tracks,” Isabella said.

Ciara Wing, another skier on the Far West team, appreciates Isabella’s helpful nature. Compared to other team members whom Wing has found to be boastful and arrogant, Isabella is always willing to help out her teammates.

“She does practically every sport

Photo courtesy of Isabella Heinemann

ISABELLA HEINEMANN POSES at the bottom of the course, preparing to race. imaginable and she’s pretty good at a whole lot of them. She can pick them up really easily, but she’s always happy to help people out,” Wing said.

Furthermore, with the increasingly

competitive atmosphere regarding regionals, Isabella skis over the weekend from December to April for seven hours.

Valia Heinemann, Isabella’s sister and freshman at Redwood, races on the same

bark

team as her sister. Compared to skiers living in Tahoe full-time, the girls have less time to train on the mountain, making their weekend trainings essential to their success.

“More people, as we’ve gotten older, have started becoming more serious and getting homeschooled so they can ski most days. We can only ski two days a week, so it’s a bit harder for us to keep up,” Valia said.

At qualifying races for regionals, the competitiveness is at its peak. Out of all the skiers across the Western United States, Isabella placed in the top 29 to head to regionals on March 14. She attributes her success to her perseverance, regardless of challenges such as her skillful opponents and the long weekend commute. “[I like] to learn and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Because skiing is such a precise sport, it takes a lot of trial and error to find the fastest way down,” Isabella said.

While racers may be on a team, skiing is an individual sport. The precision required to succeed can only be achieved through determination and love for the sport.

“At this point, half of what you’re working on you have to figure out for yourself. The coaches are there to help you, but they can’t feel what you are feeling,” Isabella said.

tcaron@redwoodbark.org

Girls’ varsity swim team looking to surpass last year’s finish

By Mia Kessinger Cub Reporter

In the weeks leading up to the Marin County Athletic League (MCAL) finals, Redwood’s girls’ varsity swimmers are working hard to end their season successfully. Although last year they did not bring home a banner, this year’s team has promising potential and a determined mindset, according to senior captain Olivia Greenberg. Following a difficult but close loss against Terra Linda on March 22, the Giants are looking for redemption heading into the rest of the season. With only three meets left until the first MCAL trials, each girl is focused on individual success in order to score points for the team.

After losing a handful of seniors last year, the team is fixated on improving from last year’s fourth-place finish in the MCAL championship. Sophomore Rachel Jordan, who has swum on the varsity team for two years, is a key participant as a breaststroker and contributes points every meet. According to Jordan, encouragement between teammates and fans is crucial to a victorious season.

“At MCALs last year a lot of people sat at the end of the lanes and cheered for us so that was really fun, and I feel like we swim better when we can hear each other supporting one another,” Jordan said.

Senior and captain Olivia Greenberg is an essential part of the team, winning the 200 individual medley and 100 back in MCALs last year. Greenberg emphasized that the successful swimming careers of the coaching staff have helped the team advance significantly.

“Steve, one of our assistant coaches, is a gold medalist and world record holder, and Fred, our head coach, swam in college, so they all have experience,” Greenberg said.

“Every day they share their knowledge with us and give

us different tips and tricks to make us better swimmers.”

Co-captain Jay Jay Eaton finds that the team concentrating on the moment is the best way to lead to a strong outcome. The two leaders have both committed to UC Davis for swimming next year and are hoping to finish out their careers at Redwood triumphantly. According Greenberg, it is essential that everyone does their job to add to the team score, which will ultimately lead them to win more meets.

“I think this year we are really putting an emphasis on everyone playing a role for the team no matter what race you swim in,” Greenberg said. “We all are just really focusing on staying present in practice and not thinking about end goals or championship season, but focusing on the little things which are really helping all of us stay present and enjoying our time together.”

Despite swimming being a solo sport for some events, the team dynamic is extremely important for the girls, according to freshman Cat Watrous. Watrous is eager to win her first pennant and believes that the team working as a unit will help complete that goal.

“For the team, we are trying to win as many meets as possible and have a lot of our swimmers make it to the North Coast Section (NCS) finals. I think having a good team dynamic is really important because swimming is hard, so when you hear your teammates cheering for you it gives you that extra push to finish the race and really go all out,” Watrous said.

The girls’ varsity team are eager to grow this season by placing higher in the MCAL championships with the resilient guidance of their senior captains. Driven by past losses, the team is pushing to reach their full potential to finish out on a high note. The girls’ varsity swim team’s next meet is Thursday, April 18 against Drake at Redwood.

Photo by Mia Kessinger

TAKING THEIR POSITIONS before the race, the Redwood swimmers get in their racing mindset. mkessinger@redwoodbark.org

April 5, 2019 bark Page 14 • Sports Sophomore Ben Cohen preserves brotherhood legacy on varsity baseball

By Aiko Nahas Cub Reporter

Standing tall on the mound, sophomore Ben Cohen, wearing number 19, strikes the third batter out. As a pitcher and an outfielder, Ben is the only sophomore who was offered a spot on the Redwood boys’ varsity baseball team this season.

According to Ben, he works his hardest every practice so he can not only improve his game for the benefit of his team but do his best to challenge himself. He wants to continue his journey and keep moving to higher levels, but for now, Ben is grateful to have the opportunity to experience playing on a competitive team. “[Playing on an older team] definitely a big jump.

The ball comes in at a lot faster rate and competition gets harder. This is much more of a fast pace game, but I’m ready for it,” Ben said.

Being the youngest of three brothers who have also played baseball, Ben’s childhood always revolved around the sport. His love of baseball began at the age of three when he first stepped up to bat at a Tee-Ball game.

Ever since then, Ben has worked to improve his skills by watching his older brothers play on several different teams, including the varsity team at Redwood.

Ben’s eldest brother, Zach Cohen, a junior in college, plays baseball for New York University and his other brother, Josh Cohen, a freshman in college, plays for Emerson College. Just like Ben, Josh made the varsity team his sophomore year while Zach made the team as a freshman. Ben would love to play in college but has no specific school in mind.

“I’m my own person. There’s a school for everyone, and I’d say I have a lot of time to figure out what that school is for me,” Ben said.

Photo by Aiko Nahas

RELEASING THE BALL, Ben Cohen aims to strike out a batter.

Photo by Aiko Nahas

SOPHOMORE BEN COHEN strategizing with his teammate, Jake Nordstrom, during a game against Tamalpais High School.

Junior Alex Hagen plays on the varsity team alongside they have more juniors than seniors and one sophomore.

Ben. Hagen was made the varsity team his sophomore year However, Ben has only given up six runs in just over 18 as well, so the two teammates share a common feeling of innings and has an Earned Run Average (ERA) of 1.53 so what it is like being the youngest player on an older team. far this season.

“Ben came up as a sophomore and has been doing Firenzi recognizes that the Cohen brothers are very really good. It’s pretty impressive; he has already proven dedicated to the sport on and off the field. Firenzi knows his spot on our team,” Hagen said. that being the youngest on the team can be hard and he Mike Firenzi, the varsity baseball coach, has played cuts Ben a little slack since he has had the least amount of a huge roll in the sports culture at Redwood. For the past practice with this team. However, in all other aspects such 30 years, he has been coaching baseball. According to as dedication and hard work, Ben is treated like any other Firenzi, he enjoys having the opportunity to coach the member of the team. last Cohen brother and strives for the best with all of his As the season continues to progress, Firenzi knows his players. team will need to put in the extra work and leave their “When they leave me [after high school] and learn the early-season mistakes behind. Ben has learned so much game, I did my job,” Firenzi said. through the short amount of time he has been playing for According to Ben, he is very fortunate to have Firenzi this team and is excited to continue playing for Firenzi lead him through his journey, he said. According to Ben, throughout high school.

Firenzi has been a tremendous influence as a coach and “Ben is only a sophomore, but in the future, he will someone to look up to. most likely be a position player as well. For now, we count “Coach Firenzi is the best coach I’ve ever had. Not on him on the mound [as a pitcher],” Firenzi said. only does he care about his players, [but] he cares about

raising us as young men,” Ben said.

This year’s varsity team is on the younger side, as anahas@redwoodbark.org

Redwood’s current Varsity MCAL standings as of 3/29

By Will Muller and Aiko Nahas Cub Reporters

Boys’ lacrosse: tied for first-place Boys’ lacrosse is undefeated in their MCAL games with a leading record of 3-0, tied with Terra Linda, Novato and Marin Catholic. The team is led by senior captains Harri Hetrick, Jack Parsons, Luke Elders and Nathaniel Kuffner. They are currently ranked 17th in California.

Girls’ lacrosse: tied for first-place Girls’ lacrosse has an overall record of 11-1, losing only to Piedmont on March 23, and has a record of 4-0 in MCALs, a tie with Novato. Despite the early loss of their coach, Rory Daly, senior captains Erin McCarthy and Amanda Morse have stepped up to lead the team to success.

Girls’ lacrosse is ranked 21st in the nation.

Boys’ volleyball: tied for first-place So far this season, the boys’ volleyball team has an overall record of 20-3 and MCAL record of 8-1 under the guidance of senior captains Mitchell Zucker and Matthew Tede. The team has kept their friendly rivalry alive with the Marin Catholic Wildcats, with both schools tied for first in the rankings.

Boys’ golf: tied for first-place Looking to protect their MCAL title from last season, the boys’ varsity golf team is led by senior Anthony Alioto. The team is off to an encouraging start after defeating Novato High School on March 7, resulting in a 1-0 record.

Track and field: tied for first-place Redwood track and field is already on pace for a record-breaking season with nationally ranked runner and senior captain Liam Anderson leading the way.

The team currently has a 4-0 record.

Boys’ tennis: first-place Boy’s tennis has an overall record of 14-4 and a record of 10-0 in MCAL league games. Led by senior captains Devon Whelpley and Freddie Kehoe, the team is determined to receive the number one seed for their upcoming MCAL tournament.

Baseball: tied for third-place Varsity baseball has started off their season with a winning record of 7-5. Now the team is on a two-game winning streak with the help of senior captains Jackson Barry, Jackson Bender, Genki Leclair and Jake Nordstrom. They are tied for third with San Marin and Drake.

Softball: third-place Though the varsity softball team lost seven seniors after they graduated last year, the team has earned a 4-2 record in MCAL games this year, lead by senior team captains Kamalei Kaleikini and Alexis Gero.

bark@redwoodbark.org

Page 15 • Sports

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ACL tears are ripping Redwood athletes from their teams

By Jackson Epps and Charlie Ginsburg Cub Reporters Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson and Zach Lavine are all professional athletes who have suffered through one of the most devastating injuries: a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The ACL is a ligament in the knee that helps stabilize the joint and is crucial for a full range of motion.

Recovering from a torn ACL most often requires surgery, months of rehab and missing the entirety of a sports season. However, it is not just professional athletes who suffer from this injury. According to American Academy of Pediatrics, more and more high school athletes have gone through the process of repairing a torn ACL, and for the last two decades, the rate of ACL tears among children and teens has been increasing 2.3 percent annually.

Senior Mckenna McGonigle has suffered from the pain of a torn ACL twice in her athletic career. McGonigle’s first torn ACL occurred during a soccer game in November of her sophomore year when she misstepped and an opposing player hit the outside of her foot. She underwent surgery

Photo by Charlie Ginsburg

HUDSON FELGER’S REDWOOD junior varsity football team during the 2018 season.

to repair her ACL in December of 2017, and despite the recommended recovery time for ACL surgery being nine to 12 months, McGonigle was back on the field just seven months after her first injury. She attributes this second tear to the reduced recovery time.

“I rushed back on the field way too quick,” McGonigle said. “I think that’s definitely why I tore it a second time, unfortunately.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, an organization dedicated to providing clinical practice, depending on the severity of the tear, surgery may be needed if recommended by a doctor, which is what McGonigle underwent following her second injury.

After McGonigle’s second injury and subsequent surgery, she learned her lesson and took the recovery process much slower. She decided to resume playing after the recommended 10 months had passed following the tear in order to ensure proper recovery.

“The physical recovery is definitely really hard. You have all this muscle atrophy and you have to wait for the tendon to attach, but also it’s tough on you mentally to have to sit out of a sport you’ve been playing your whole life for a full 10 months,” McGonigle said.

Sophomore Hudson Felger can also relate to both the physical and mental pain of the tear. Felger tore his ACL when he took a hit to the side of his knee in August while playing football. He underwent surgery soon after and has been working to gain his strength back since then.

“I’ve been doing rehab for about five months now,” Felger said. “It’s actually very difficult and annoying, but I know it’s something I have to do if I want to get healthy.”

Despite finding the physical therapy to be very challenging, Felger, like McGonigle, felt that the hardest part was sitting out.

“I missed the entire football season, and that was pretty devastating,” Felger said.

In addition to missing out on Redwood’s football season, Felger’s recovery time will cut into much of Redwood’s lacrosse season as well. At this time last year, Felger was playing lacrosse for Redwood’s junior varsity team, but this year he will be forced to continue physical therapy and watch from the sidelines.

bark

Photo courtesy of Mckenna McGonigle

SENIOR MCKENNA MCGONIGLE sprints with the ball versus San Rafael High School.

In order to prevent future and first time injuries, the Mayo Clinic recommends using proper fitting equipment as well as stretching and improving technique when jumping, pivoting, and cutting. A proper warm up and strengthening of the leg muscles is also a recommended preventative measure. And, though often unavoidable, the Mayo Clinic suggests avoiding turf surfaces as that increases the risk of a tear.

“Realistically, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to play lacrosse this year, and that I’d have to be rehabbing at this time,” Felger said. “But it’s still disappointing not being a part of the team.”

Unfortunately, Felger has a long road ahead of him, as his doctors told him he should be fully recovered in an additional five months. However, he is optimistic about what is to come.

“The hardest part was definitely right after the surgery,” Felger said. “Now that that is behind me, I’m confident I can get through this.” bark@redwoodbark.org

Sports Spotlight: Sean Middleton speeds to success

By Emma Lightfoot Cub Reporter

Whether he is biking along the scenic, tranquil trails of Marin County or racing down courses filled with screaming fans and natural obstacles, sophomore Sean Middleton has dominated the world of mountain biking. After only a year of racing on the Redwood team, Sean joined the competitive Bear Development Men’s Junior 15-18 team, which is part of an elite program that participates in races around the world. At nationals last year, Sean finished as the 23rd best mountain biker between the ages of 15 and 16.

Sean frequently travels internationally to compete against other young athletes like himself.

The stress of races does not phase Sean, as this is where Sean feels the most powerful. Sean’s experience biking leaves him feeling confident and strong, with all of the control being his.

“When biking, I get to be in my own zone and it’s not up to others how I do, it’s up to me,” Sean said.

Sean began his rigorous mountain biking career during his freshman year and can often be seen biking around Marin. He initially started to mountain bike at age eight as a fun activity with his father, Patrick Middleton.

“He started riding without training wheels when he was about three, and we got him a basic bike when he was eight.

We were riding to school and then I just started taking him up on the trails from about eight years old and on,” Patrick said.

Sean rode his bike to his middle school every morning and started to bike on more trails. He was hooked on the sport and once he got on his first mountain bike, he never wanted to get off. Mountain biking allows Sean to reach new heights as an athlete.

“I think I love it so much because I get to test my own limits every time I race,” Sean said.

Patrick has been a principle inspiration behind his son’s love of mountain biking, as he also has enjoyed mountain biking through his life, and wanted to share the sport with his son.

“Because I liked to [mountain bike] he would come with me, and he was pretty athletic so he started to do it a little bit more and more,” Patrick said.

To this day, Patrick continuously strives to inspire his son to work harder and was even the one who suggested that Sean start racing for the Redwood team.

The Redwood mountain biking team is a Division I program led by Duane Coughlan, the Redwood team’s coach for the past three years. Coughlan wants to see all of his riders, no matter the skill level, succeed through individual progression this season. Coughlan appreciates Middleton’s presence on the team and believes in his ability to improve this year.

“Sean is easy to coach.

He takes direction well, [and] he is very laid back and easy going.

He is a talented athlete,” Coughlan said.

Though Coughlan has only coached Sean for one year, Sean has left a lasting impression on him. Through his season’s practices and races, Coughlan has seen an adjustment in Sean’s attitude.

“I think he has progressed in his maturity towards training and he is taking it more seriously,” Coughlan said.

Sean is constantly striving to reach new personal and team goals. Sean’s training includes riding for 13 hours a week and two of those days are spent doing arduous training. Coughlan notices the responsible management of Middleton’s time, as he rides on two teams and had been able to arrange all of his activities around his mountain biking career.

“He has been able to coordinate so that [the Bear Development team and the

Redwood team] work together. He is able to show up to our practices even though he has got his own training,” Coughlan said.

Through his commitment to mountain biking, Sean has become a reliable athlete for his coaches. Sean’s work ethic leaves his coaches with no doubts about his future success.

“Even when it’s raining he is coming out and doing his training, getting the job done,” Coughlan said.

While Sean has shown determination to his coaches, he has also displayed an incredible amount of effort in the eyes of his family, as he is constantly pushing himself to achieve more.

“The thing about endurance sports, is there is a fair amount of suffering that goes on while you’re out there, pushing

your body to the limit. As a parent, it’s incredible to see how much your child can push themselves,” Patrick said.

Middleton plans to continue cycling competitively on both the Bear Development Team and the Redwood Mountain Biking Team. Eventually, he hopes to race professionally in Europe or with a college team. As for right now, Middleton is planning to participate in more competitive races and hopes to grow as a mountain biker.

“For future plans, I definitely want to see how far I can get throughout high school, then depending on that, see what my next option is, either more racing or to college somewhere,” Sean said. elightfoot@redwoodbark.org

Photo courtesy of Isabella Heinemann

SEAN MIDDLETON CHARGES ahead of his opponents in the Cross Country Mountain Bike Series in Bonelli Park.

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Best of the binge: early spring Netflix Things keep getting better, ‘Queer Eye’ releases its best season yet

By Devin Bosely Cub Reporter

“Queer Eye,” the Emmy Award-winning Netflix original based off the popular 2000s show with the same name, has returned for its highly anticipated third season following a nine-month hiatus. Since the “Fab Five’s” introduction in 2018, they have stolen the hearts of thousands of viewers while educating the public on the importance of self-care and the power of a great haircut.

Distancing itself from the formulaic pattern of the first two seasons, this season and its eight episodes that premiered on March 15 tackle new challenges, topics and diverse clients, effectively resulting in the best season yet.

“Queer Eye” follows the “Fab Five,” a group of five gay men, who makeover a new deserving “hero” in each episode, and help them on their journey to self-love. Each member of the “Fab Five” plays a vital role: Jonathan Van Ness for grooming, Antoni Porowski for food and wine, Tan France for fashion, Karamo Brown for culture and Bobby Berk for design.

The main issue with the show’s previous seasons was that it was clearly still in its developmental stages.

Following the original series’ formula for success, the show, in order to not turn away the returning audience, feared making dramatic content changes. The first series was pivotal in exposing the country to the LGBTQ+ community and the fight for awareness. The reboot has met

the expectations set by the orignal; however, if the show continues to produce the same content, it will disengage the audience. The lack of variety definitely caused my interest to dwindle while watching the introductory seasons.

In the newest season, I was pleasantly surprised to see the developed relationship of the “Fab Five” and an incredibly engaging new group of “heroes,” along with demographics not yet touched on in the previous seasons.

Episode one included the first female makeover, and this diversity continued later showcasing the first duo and the first lesbian. The show is making an effort to broaden their audience and break from the traditional mold of “queer eye for the straight guy.” As a viewer, the growth is welcomed. Along with the new “heroes,” the show moved from Atlanta, Georgia to Kansas City, Missouri and welcomed a new canine cast member, Bruley. The show desperately needed these new and interesting additions, so I was incredibly satisfied.

No two episodes felt the same because each centered around its own unique theme, varying from new parenthood, expanding a family restaurant and femininity, to losing a loved one to cancer. The “Fab Five” have developed so much that such varying storylines can be accomplished without appearing disjointed in a collective season. Season three was able to connect the stories by focusing more on the central idea that self-love is not a selfish task. Through helping the “heroes” achieve their goals, “Queer Eye” also helps the viewer realize the self-

Photo courtesy of Netflix

“THE FAB FIVE” on their way to makeover their next “hero.” deprecating acts one inflicts upon themselves that can be corrected. This demonstrates the importance of the show and its powerful emotional impact on its viewers.

“Queer Eye” is a current, diverse show, presenting a message that is not promoted enough in society: the importance of self-love. The episodes are also not serialized, making for an even easier viewing experience.

If you are in the mood for a lighthearted series that will make you laugh and break out the tissue box, “Queer Eye” is the perfect show for you. dbosely@redwoodbark.org

‘The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind’ blows audiences off their feet

By Mady Gordon Cub Reporter

Captivating from its first two minutes, Netflix’s “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind” delivers a powerful, heartfelt story that continues to be impactful long after the credits roll. The movie, which is based on a true

Photo courtesy of Netflix

WILLIAM (MAXWELL SIMBA) constructs a windmill to provide power for his village.

story, follows the life of a young boy named William Kamkwamba and his village after a devastating crop season depletes their food supply. In order to save his community, William attempts to build a windmill to generate power, with hopes of increasing their crop yield for the coming season. Based in Kasungu, Malawi, this uplifting story of triumph is brought to the screen through a strong performance by Maxwell Simba and an electrifying directorial debut for Chiwetel Ejiofor, all while stunning cinematography simply blows the audience away.

The opening scenes of the film are filled with aspects of Malawian culture, such as traditional music and dance, giving the movie a fresh perspective. The lush savannah is a beautiful backdrop the for the problems the village must overcome, including an immediate death of an influential community member and the decimated field of crops that fail to provide due to a rainless season. Dancers and drummers dressed in vibrant garb give a look into the unique culture that surrounds this slowly modernizing village, as well as the excerpts of the native language that fully immerse the viewer (don’t worry, there are subtitles).

One of the most inspiring aspects of the movie is William’s ability to overcome the obstacles through his sheer resourcefulness and resilience. He takes advantage of broken-down machinery, by turning it into a complex

and functioning windmill. I could not help but feel a sense of awe while watching him construct a complicated windmill out of trash he found on the streets and the knowledge he fought to learn. Challenged by growing turmoil in the community as people begin to resort to theft and crime in order to eat, William is a wonderful example of the resilience of the human spirit, showing how capable we are of bettering the lives of the people around us.

If you are looking for a light-hearted comedy, this may not be the movie for you. However, I recommend watching it because of how grounding it was. After watching this movie, I felt very grateful for the simple things I have access to every day: food, a good education and the ability to go home without worrying whether or not either of those things will be taken away from me. Watching made me realize how capable I am of inspiring change in my own life and how I can help the people around me in all sorts of ways, no matter how big or small. A movie compiled of a dynamic storyline, likable characters, witty humor paired with dire circumstances and spectacular shots, “The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind” has something for everyone.

mgordon@redwoodbark.org

‘Turn up Charlie’ seems to be spinning its tracks in the wrong direction

By Claire Henry Cub Reporter

Bright blue luminescent lights flash around Charlie Ayo as he fantasizes about turning tables at a grand outdoor stage. He is seen jumping and feeling the rhythm of the beat while mashing up songs for the crowd to dance to. Everyone, including Charlie, is having a blast and is ready for another round of songs, but suddenly the screen cuts to Ayo’s reality while the TV show title, “Turn Up Charlie”, appears on the screen. In the show, Charlie was a one-hit wonder, but years later he ends up struggling to keep his DJing career alive. He longs for his future to be as great as his “good old days” as a ‘90s DJ. With a little help from his old friend David, Charlie becomes the nanny for his friend’s spoiled eleven-year-old daughter Gabrielle.

Gabrielle’s mom, Sara, turns out to be a world renowned DJ who helps Charlie get back on his feet.

Although the show is considered a comedy, with each episode averaging 30 minutes, viewers end up barely chuckling by the end of the show. Idris Elba is an actor who is not known for work in the comedic genre, and this is for the better. Elba, who portrays Charlie, attempts to add a comedic layer while taking care of Gabrielle and attempting to bond with her. Charlie, unaware of what is popular among the younger generation, attempts to

communicate by calling himself “adorbs.” This cringeworthy scene is one of the many failed attempts to engage younger demopgraphics.

The series has the potential to be unique because of its topic, as it brings the life of a DJ into the limelight.

Unfortunately, the plotline doesn’t necessarily follow through with its creative topic or category. It ends up being predictable and formulaic while trying to show the life of parenting and being a DJ in a more dramatic than comedic way.

Although the series fails at creating an original comedy that has an unique plotline, the different characters stand out, especially the daughter, Gabrielle. Initially, she is precocious, with two very successful and famous parents and everything an eleven-year-old can dream of. Her hard-to-handle personality gives her a reputation of easily managing to get rid of nannies. The series becomes more of a drama when, as the two bond, Gabrielle begins to open up about her feelings and think of Charlie as more of a friend than a caretaker.

Many recently released shows can be divided into two categories: those that spread a deep message and those that are made for the money. This show fell in the second category. Once in a while, there are shows that are brilliantly done, but “Turn Up Charlie” does not make the cut. The series has a lot of uniqueness due to Charlie’s

Photo courtesy of Netflix

CHARLIE AYO PARTIES it up while DJing at his friends wedding. job choice, but, it should have had more substance and too much time is wasted on the predictable plot line. If the show didn’t take the typical underdog story where the protagonist hits rock bottom justw to travel back to the top, the show might be more intriguing. Even though “Turn Up Charlie” has some funny characters, it would be wise to browse Netflix for another show.

chenry@redwoodbark.org

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Shake-ing it up:

How does Shake Shack compare to Marin’s best burger restaurants?

By Mia Kessinger Cub Reporter

Whether it be an afternoon craving after a long day of school and sports or a Friday night out with friends, students often find themselves longing for a good burger.

Originally an exclusively East Coast burger joint, Shake Shack’s opening in Marin has created excitement because of its similarities to the West Coast’s In-N-Out. Shake Shack opened in Larkspur on March 27 and was extremely successful, with lines piling out the door from opening to closing. With the opening of Shake Shack in the Marin Country Mart, I looked into some of its competition: the most popular burger restaurants in Marin for Redwood students.

The Counter: 3.5/5 The Counter, located in Corte Madera Town Center, is a restaurant with a unique spin on how to order your burger, with a “create your own burger” menu that allows you to pick your favorite toppings. Although I was not disappointed with my burger, I found the ratio between burger and toppings was disproportional, with too much patty and skimpy amounts of garnishes. However, the simple seasoning and lightly salted pretzel bun made for a great taste.

Star Product: The smoky bacon barbecue burger with a side of sweet potato fries.

What Sets The Counter Apart: Offers an uncommon option of allowing you to create your own burger with a variety of tasty toppings, buns and sauces.

In-N-Out: 4.5/5 Located off the Redwood Highway in Mill Valley, In-N-Out is considered a classic meal for Californians and especially Redwood students. Despite my dislike of fast food, I cannot help but love their one-of-a-kind yet inexpensive burger. Although some of the vegetables were slightly bland, it was also topped with their signature shake sauce and crispy lettuce, leaving you extremely satisfied.

Plus, the friendly atmosphere provided by the welcoming

Photo by Mia Kessinger

FLAVORSOME AND ORIGINAL, Shake Shack’s burgers and fries provide a tasty bite of East Coast cuisine. The photo includes the Chick’n Shack Burger, an iconic menu item. workers and colorful decor makes for an ideal setting to enjoy your meal.

Star Product: “Protein Style” burger.

What sets In-N-Out apart: Its secret menu offers a twist on typical fries and burgers, like the untraditional but exceptional animal fries.

Shake Shack: 5/5 With the doors finally open, I joined the crowds on opening day to investigate their allegedly delicious burgers. Although the line on opening day was long, taking up to 30 minutes, it was well worth the wait. Conveniently, only 10 minutes after I ordered my meal, my food was out

and ready to be eaten. To my delight, the burger melted in my mouth with the perfect combination of buttermilk herb mayo and fresh pickles. Additionally, the crinkle-cut fries had an ideal balance of a light and fluffy interior and crisp exterior. Unlike other fries, Shake Shack’s were unique, delectable and just crispy enough to not be soggy.

Star Product: Chick’n Shack Burger What sets Shake Shack apart: Shake Shack’s menu offers exclusive and enjoyable shakes, cups, and cones; including their frozen custards (named “Concretes”) blended with your choice of mix-ins. mkessinger@redwoodbark.org

New Museum of Illusions decieves but satisfies visitors

By Mara Farese Cub Reporter

The storefronts along San Francisco’s renowned Fisherman’s Wharf are constantly changing, as the popular space is highly contested. With a high turnover rate, many businesses come and go within months. The new Museum of Illusions, open since last February, is now part of the busy scene by the bay, and has become a social media destination where photos turn into experiences.

This self-guided museum leads the observer through a series of paintings along

the walls that recreate both realistic and hypothetical scenes, featuring dreamscapes of San Francisco. Whether their pictures show them inside a holographic bubble or sitting on the edge of a broken cable car, visitors take turns posing in these unlikely scenarios, creating the sense of an “illusion.” I was thoroughly impressed with the artists’ skills by capturing the details and the effort shown in each painting, tricking the human eye.

The artists’ hard work has paid off with a line out the door of the museum; customer gains are most likely due to the desirable location. Personally, I enjoy

going to this part of the city because there is so much to do. Additional advertising comes from previous customers sharing photos with friends and family about their positive experience.

Many customers stop to take photos at my personal favorite image, the painted Lombard Street background. This painting included a typical view from the top of the narrow, winding Lombard Street with a twist. Instead of pavement, the road was a lava river. The subject of the picture was meant to pose on a floating chunk of pavement, creating a chaotic but improbable scene from the artist’s

imagination.

One drawback was the number of people in each room. I had to wait for visitors to take photos in front of paintings before I had a chance to look at each wall.

The experience felt rushed as the crowd behind me was silently urging me on, so they could also have a turn with the illusions. Although the hoards of people shuffling from room to room may be good for the museum’s income, it negatively impacted my overall experience.

The short but rushed self-tour was engaging, and the atmosphere was lively.

However, the price I paid for the tickets did not live up to my experience. The general admission tickets are $25 for general admission and $10 for a child.

Unfortunately, to make the most of the Museum of Illusions one must go with a group in order to stage pictures in front of the paintings, and with expensive tickets, the price soon racks up.

My experience was enjoyable; however, I did not feel as though the museum lived up to my highest expectations. After hearing the name “Museum of Illusions,” I jumped at the idea of optical illusions that make your head spin, and didn’t expect the simple paintings on the wall meant for pictures. Other museums featuring illusions, like different illusion museum as seen in places like New York City, are full of a variety of misconceptions that mess with the viewers’ perception. This includes lines and shapes that seem to move but are actually standing still. Even though it was unexpected, I enjoyed my time at the museum of illusions, and it gave me another reason to further explore this part of the city. The name misled me, but the photos I had by the end were very realistic looking, and to an oblivious friend, believably unbelievable.

Photo by Mara Farese

IN THE MUSEUM of Illusions, the painting of Lombard Street combines the day-to-day with the surreal, exchanging the bricks for lava.

mfarese@redwoodbark.org

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Zargar’s childhood in Iran guides new perspectives

By Camille Ray Cub Reporter

“I would see bombs being dropped and things exploding. There was always noise, chaos and fear. Much like we do at Redwood during an [earthquake] drill, we would take cover under tables or beds, hoping that if something was bombed near us it would not kill us,” said Saum Zargar, one of Redwood’s three assistant principals.

Growing up in a small, war-ridden town in Iran during the 1980s, Saum now has an unmatched appreciation for his life in America.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love everything about Marin: the Trader Joe’s, being able to go to the movies with my son, getting a nice car wash, everything. But none of that would be the same without the foundation of my origin.

And I think that is why I love it so much, because my family and I worked so hard get these opportunities,” Saum said.

Back on a seemingly normal day in Jan. of 1987, Saum’s morning started like any other. His aunt, Tooran, and brother, Kamrun, went out to the city to shop while his father left for work at a local refinery. This left Saum with his mother back at home.

Kamrun and Tooran were in a camera store to buy film when word came in that both the city and refinery were about to be bombed.

“Outside, I could hear people screaming and pointing to the sky. Once the bombs had dropped, we were so close that I could literally feel the shock go through me. The glass shattered, and immediately my brother fainted,” Kamrun said. “Luckily, a taxi driver we knew was close by and yelled for us to get in the car so that he could take us back home.”

Saum recalled how stressful it was to wait to hear back from the rest of his family.

“I was taking shelter in our house and I had no idea if my dad or my brothers were alive or not,” Saum said.

“If our house was Redwood High School, the distance between us and where it was being bombed was like the Larkspur Theatre.”

Once the Zargar family reunited in their home, they decided to permanently flee the city and head to the desert for protection from the turmoil. According to Saum, it was common for others to do the same. After the catastrophic events of the day, Saum described the desert as a “tent city.”

Luckily, Saum, his father and Kamrun all had American citizenships because they were born in Missouri.

“My parents decided that they were going to do what they could to return to the United States,” Saum said.

However, due to a misunderstanding with their passport expiration dates and the tensions between Iran and the United States, the trio had to send their expired passports to the United States through Turkey to get them renewed.

After two weeks, the passports were approved, and the Zargar family made their way to America. Traveling from Istanbul to Belgium to New York, Saum and his family finally reached San Francisco on June 25, 1987, a date that will forever live on in the Zargars’ memories.

“I remember coming into JFK. I remember the Statue of Liberty, seeing it from the airplane. That is a vivid image for me. And I remember having some American coins; I had a couple dimes and some quarters in my pocket. I thought that was the coolest thing,” Saum said.

According to Saum, when arriving somewhere new, little things make the biggest impression. Kamrun’s experience was no different.

“After we landed, we had to get gas for our car, so we went to the gas station. My uncle came back with ice creams for each of us, which was weird for me because ice cream and gas were never something I thought would be in the same place,” Kamrun said.

31 years after his return to the United States, Saum now lives a successful life in Marin County with his wife and son. A story like Saum’s brings an invaluable perspective to a community where 82 percent of the population is American born, according to the United States Department of Commerce.

“No matter how old I get, I will always remember

Photo by Camille Ray

SAUM ZARGAR MOVED to America in 1987 and has worked as a Redwood High School administrator for two years. the journey and the struggles my family went through in order to get me these opportunities,” Saum said. “I think of myself in this job and this country and can only think of the miracle that brought it all to me.”

cray@redwoodbark.org

Lili Gibson lives life in the spotlight

By Olivia Kharrazi Cub Reporter

After weeks of rehearsal at the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) rehearsal studio, the day of the show has finally arrived. Hours spent rehearsing have brought actors together, and through the collaboration of learning novel songs and acting as an ensemble, they prepare to perform in The Garret of the A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. The room’s exposed brick walls and hanging lights create a New York-style setting and contribute to the feeling of an intimate cabaret performance.

Aspiring actors throughout the Bay Area audition, practice and perform in theaters such as these, and junior Lili Gibson is no exception. Gibson’s life has revolved around theater for as long as she can remember, and has upheld a balancing act between theater and everything else.

Theater has shaped who she is as a person and, for her, it is more than just

playing a part: it teaches lessons essential to everyday life as well.

Gibson’s acting career started with small-scale shows, little musicals and plays, but the magnitude of her undertakings grew quickly.

“I think that being so young and being put full force into [acting] made me see how much I love it,” Gibson said.

Though she continues to act in musicals around Marin, Gibson has expanded her horizons. Four years ago, she joined the A.C.T. cabaret ensemble, a competitive acting program with a strict audition process that selects only the best actors in the Bay Area. She has even performed with the Broadway Princess Party, a show with the greatest Disney princess actresses from Broadway. Last summer, Gibson studied at a three-week acting intensive at the British American Drama Academy, which is considered an honor in the acting world.

Although Gibson had to work hard to improve her repertoire and acting skills,

Courtesy of Parker Canby

JUNIOR LILI GIBSON rehearses for an upcoming performance of “One School” from 21 Chump Street.

her decision to pursue drama further came easily. Her first memories as a child are of performing onstage at a young age.

She found her calling with the help of her parents, who instilled into her the value of pursuing her interests.

From a young age, Gibson attended countless musicals and plays, and she was enrolled in theater, singing and dancing lessons.

Her parents also encouraged her to find confidence within herself and to have no shame of her vibrant personality.

“As a person, I’m very social, and outgoing. A lot of times in theater there are people who are really shy, and when they get on stage it brings them out. But me, I’m not like that; I’m really open and just being on stage makes me even more like myself,” Gibson said.

However, as her acting progressed, Gibson realized an outgoing personality alone could not carry her to success.

Redwood drama director Erik Berkowitz explained that Gibson has to be able to draw from personality traits that are not innate in order to create characters dissimilar to herself.

“There is a lot to her acting that she brings that is not part of who she is as a person. She knows how to go into herself to be able to create characters that are unlike herself,” Berkowitz said.

Gibson has had to use her own life experiences as a guide to fulfill her roles.

“Every experience that I’ve had, every person I’ve met, every culture I’ve explored, has influenced my acting,” Gibson said.

Not only have her life experiences contributed to her acting but the roles Gibson plays have influenced her own life outside of theater as well.

“For me personally, acting has made me a lot more confident because it is something I can express myself in and something I am good at.” Gibson said. “doing musical theater as well gave me a sense of self that

I never had before and influenced me as a person to think differently and deeply about things that are going on.”

Jill MacLean, the A.C.T Young Conservatory director, has worked closely with Gibson and said theater allows actors to empathize with the characters they portray.

“When you learn the skills of an actor and when you learn the craft of acting, you have to put yourself into other people’s shoes; you have to imagine what it’s like to be in other people’s circumstances,” MacLean said.

As an actor, this art form plays into all aspects of life, and life plays into all areas of the art form.

For actors like Gibson, knowing this may lead to ultimate success in the acting field.

“It’s really inspiring, all the things I’ve done, to know that it’s only impossible if you make it impossible. Everyone will always tell you ‘Oh, you’re going to be an actor? That’s so hard, you’re never going to make it,’ but if you never lose your passion and your drive, you cannot miss your moment,” Gibson said.

okharrazi@redwoodbark.org

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Remembering the infamous ‘Unknown Animals’ of ‘87

By Katie Parsons Cub Reporter

“Part of the reason why you see the ‘no face painting’ and ‘no inappropriate cheering’ signs at Redwood now are because of the ‘Unknown Animals,’” Rich Weingart, a 1987 Redwood alumnus, said.

Weingart belonged to a legendary group of Redwood students known as the “Unknown Animals,” who inspired both chaos and camaraderie in the Redwood gym from 1983 to 1987. According to Weingart, the “Unknown Animals” wore red face paint, occasionally went shirtless to basketball games and chanted cheers, some of which were provocative. Led by valedictorian Brian Ohleyer, the group included Rich Weingart, Dave Allen, Kevin Erikson, Jason Lewis, Matt Brown, Kim Wagner and many others.

As freshmen, the group started out with around 10 to 15 close friends who joined together in an attempt to increase school spirit. As the audience’s attitude toward the group positively changed, it began to expand.

“I’d say [the attitude] started out with ‘What is going on?’ Then it became one of those things like, ‘Hey, that could be kind of fun.’ Then, before you know it, half the stands were packed with guys with their faces painted that were joining the cheers,” Weingart said.

As the excitement towards the group increased, they became progressively inclusive. Dave Allen, another member of the group, enjoyed that aspect.

“The ‘Unknown Animals’ were not limited to just a group of people … the entire class of ‘87 [was involved].

If you wanted to, you were in,” Allen said.

Their black and red painted faces initially acted as a mask for the group. However, despite being called the “Unknown Animals,” it was not long before their identities were revealed.

“We tried to be anonymous but everyone pretty much knew who we were, including the administration.

Someone on the head of the administration did not want us doing what we were doing, but everyone else supported the school spirit of it,” Weingart said.

The actions of the “Unknown Animals” were viewed as controversial by the administration at the time. On one side, staff members enjoyed the increased spirit that the group brought to the school. On the other side, most of

the administration was against the disobedient actions of the group.

Despite their rebellious ways, Allen believes the group used their platform to exercise their rights and diminish what they perceived to be the unjust power held by the administration.

“Probably every other Monday I was pulled into the principal’s office along with some of my other ‘Unknown Animals.’ We kind of came up with a way to defend ourselves by saying, ‘Hey, we are just exercising our freedom of speech,’” Allen said.

The theatrics of the “Unknown Animals” did not end with their high school graduation. For their 30th reunion in September of 2017, Lewis decided to direct a series of videos in which the actions of the “Unknown Animals” were recreated.

“I thought the most effective way to sell tickets [to the reunion] was to bring people back to their high school ways, and there’s no better way to do it than to show people the ‘Unknown Animals,’” Lewis said.

As a writer for The Redwood Bark and The Twin Cities Times, a local Larkspur-Corte Madera newspaper, Lewis wrote numerous articles about the “Unknown Animals” and the following reactions of Redwood students throughout his high school career. Perceived as “egging them on,” Lewis and other members of the Bark faced criticism from the administration, especially the principal Kate Blickan.

Lewis was constantly being told to stop writing about the “Unknown Animals,” but he countered by claiming he was only writing about the truth.

“The Bark at the time was turning this into a freedom of speech movement. There were all these discussions about ‘Can teenagers say what they want to say?’ and, ‘Can teachers regulate what a person wears to a sporting event?’” Lewis said.

The intruding pressures did not stop Lewis from enjoying his role in the “Unknown Animals.” The sporting events became more of a comedy show than a game to him.

“There was sort of this energy between the players, the ‘Unknown Animals’ and the audience. It was sort of like this trifecta of enthusiasm,” Lewis said.

For all of these alumni, their days in high school have created a bond not only between each other, but with

Photo by Katie Parsons

AFTER GRADUATING AROUND 30 years ago, Rich Weingart returns to the Redwood gym.

Redwood as well, and many of them are still in contact.

The years of the “Unknown Animals” will always remain in the history of the Redwood gym and the Marin County Athletic League (MCAL). “[The ‘Unknown Animals’ are] something that I think will live on in infamy,” Allen said.

kparsons@redwoodbark.org

Feminist Evan Underwood addresses Marin Teen Girl Conference with a male perspective

By Izzy Skov Cub Reporter

“The people we admire the most are the people that have the courage to stand up for what is right,” Evan Underwood-Jett, an Advanced Placement U.S. History teacher at Novato High School, said.

Underwood is a passionate male feminist who believes in defending one’s own beliefs. Because he is such a role model to young men and women, Underwood has been invited to be the first male speaker at this year’s Marin Teen Girl Conference.

“I think [the Teen Girl Conference] is an incredible opportunity and I am honored to be the first male to speak there,” Underwood said.

The Marin Teen Girl Conference is a non-profit organization that has connected young women throughout the county for 10 years. It is a way for teen girls to learn more about themselves, while also meeting others. Underwood is a great spokesperson for the event because of his love for feminism.

Underwood’s passion for feminism was inspired by his mother, Marcella Jett.

“She was really outspoken about gender inequality and wanting to have a better society that treated everyone equally,” Underwood said.

Underwood recognizes the change our society needs, and understands the importance of being an advocate for young women.

Before teaching at Novato, Underwood worked in Trinity County in Northern Calif. for a community problem solving organization called The Human Response Network. During his time working at the organization, he focused on helping women with both substance and domestic abuse problems.

“I honestly do not really know much about [The Human Response Network], but I just knew I wanted to make a positive change in the community,” Underwood said.

Helping young girls in Trinity is what first inspired Underwood to consider teaching as a career.

“Just seeing what [young] people can

Photo by Sophia Rocha

ADDRESSING THE TEEN Girl Conference, Evan Underwood is the first male to speak at the event.

Fuches has been involved with Marin do made me want to become a teacher,” Teen Girl for four years and has never Underwood said.

He proceeded to earn his teaching seen anyone like Underwood. She and her credentials and has been working at Novato fellow ambassadors are eager to hear what Underwood has to say.

High School ever since.

“The fact that we Last school could get someone year, one of like [Underwood] to U n d e r w o o d ’s do this shows that it is students, senior two genders working Georgia Lee, asked together,” Fuches said. him to run the According to the feminist club with ambassadors of the her. Lee not only organization, who are in runs the “fem club” charge of deciding who but is also one of speaks at each conference, the ambassadors Underwood was the for the Marin Teen number one choice due to Girls Conference. his great reputation in the U n d e r w o o d ’s community. presence in the Evan Underwood, Ann Morrison, the club, previously teacher at Novato High School Mayor of Larkspur and the consisting mostly head organizer for Marin of girls, has since Teen Girls commented on sparked the interest Underwood’s presence. of several boys. “[He] was hands “[Underwood] running the fem club with me has inspired down [the best]. They all wanted him. So other guys at Novato High to come [to obviously he has an incredible reputation,” the club] because they see him as a role Morrison said.

Morrison explains that Underwood model,” Lee said.

As Underwood’s bond with his students is really involved in women’s rights, and strengthened, Lee began to consider making sure both genders treat each other Underwood as a potential guest speaker for with respect.

“I think young adults, both men and the Marin Teen Girl Conference.

“Georgia asked me if I would be women, are at such a challenging part of interested, and I said ‘Of course!’ Just [their] life. [They] are trying to find [their] getting the word out and helping create identity, in which it is cool to have an community change is incredible,” advocate of the opposite sex, which people do not really associate with feminism,” Underwood said.

Nicole Fuches, a Redwood Junior and Underwood said.

Through his feminist efforts, Marin Teen Girl Ambassador appreciates Underwood’s involvement in the feminist Underwood’s ultimate goal is to ensure a future of gender equality. His actions are movement.

“I think it is really interesting to have having a huge impact on his community, a male perspective and to have a male whether it be through his teachings in the activist for these things. Because a lot of feminist club or contributions to the Marin the time people associate feminism with Teen Girl conference. men hating which really isn’t what it is, its more so a call for both, and women to get involved together,” Fuches said. iskov@redwoodbark.org

I think [the Teen Girl Conference] is an incredible opportunity and I am honored to be the first male to speak there.