Project Lit Book Club

by Juan Francisco Pedro

Pet

by Akwaeke Emezi

Review by Estrella Lopez Infante

Pet follows a 15-year old girl named Jam who lives in Lucille, a utopian city where no “evil” people exist. Instead there are good people who are labeled as “angels” that try to keep justice and peace. My favorite character is definitely Redemption, who is Jam’s best friend. I love how easily they are able to confide in each other and how warm their relationship is. Everything is also so beautifully written and you can clearly depict the scenery and characters. I recommend this book to students who enjoy heartbreaking twists and short reads. I give it a 5 out of 5 stars.

FireKeeper’s Daughter

by Angeline Boulley

Review by Kayla Scarbrough there too! I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5.

Firekeeper's Daughter is about a Native American woman, Daunis Fontaine, who felt alone on both sides of her family. She witnesses an unexpected tragedy and becomes involved in a confidential FBI investigation of a lethal drug that could be coming from her tribe’s land on Sugar Island.

During the investigation, she finds it hard to choose between protecting her heritage or helping to prevent the drug ring. My favorite character was Granny June since she saved and protected Daunis even in dangerous situations. I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

White Smoke

by Tiffany D. Jackson

Review by Eden Webster

White Smoke is a great book I would recommend. I recommend this book to people who love a good mystery: Why was Marigold in rehab? What did she do to cause her family to move? Why does this new neighborhood give Marigold the creeps? As the story moves on it is scary too. Why won’t any of the contract workers go into the basement? Why does Piper keep talking about a friend that wants to kill her? There is also a little romance in

Elevators continued from page 65

In support of Jose’s opinion, Lucy Diego responded, “it depends on the use, if a student wants to go from one building to another, it is easier to take the elevator instead of walking multiple stairs and hallways.” But Lucy also contradicts her viewpoint, “However, since the majority of student’s classes take place in one building, a student can use the opportunity to promote physical activity in between their sitting routine.”

Linzy Shults, a student who used the elevators, said, “I think that the restrictions are somewhat understandable if you think about the fact that there are no cameras in the elevators.” Linzy reveals she almost witnessed a horrific occurrence in the elevator. If the elevators were locked, incidents such as harrasment or drugs wouldn’t take place. Although Linzy believes the restrictions are necessary, administrators should consider putting cameras within the elevators in order to keep watch of the elevators.

How to help those who need it

Is it possible to assign a key to students with sports injuries right away? Assigning a key with a lanyard for injured students could move quicker than finding an SLC counsler.

However, Seth Smith claimed, “We are only granted so many elevator keys by KCS and have to track them down.” Smith suggests it’s the best way to keep the elevator key within the SLC office. Students have a higher chance of losing the keys or giving them to someone who doesn’t need the elevator keys. The majority of students believe that it is challenging to consider a different method to prevent the misuse of elevators.. “...either they are locked up and students have to find someone who has the key or keep them open all the time,” Jose comments. It’s not easy to manage both situations without a consequence. However, as Linzy states, cameras can be installed within the elevators to monitor students.

Conclusion

Often many students ignore the fact on why elevators are restricted. However, it is crucial to resolve conflicts that led to the restrictions in order to develop an easier method for the disabled. Talking with an administrator may benefit us in improvising with cameras or teach students why it is important to not misuse the elevators in and out of school.

Soures: Aylor, David. “Elevator Defects Accidents: David Aylor Law OfficesDavi.” David Aylor, 27 Oct. 2022, https://davidaylor.com/elevator-defects-accidents/.

Comic Book Club continued from page 68 is housed at UT. And being featured at comic cons and other events gives them a chance to sit “behind the table”, as artists in their own right. “It gives them confidence in their work,” Campbell said.

And like any extra-curricular activity, the comic club is an important place for students to find like-minded peers.

Aletheia “Allie” Cullimore, an 11th-grader who is the club’s art director, said she met most of her friends through the club: “It’s my favorite place at the school,” she said.

The Fulton High School Comics And Manga Club is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. The club’s artists and writers have produced four books, pictured above, and have cultivated a thriving community of comics fans.

The Fulton High School Comic And Manga Club is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. The club’s artists and writers have produced four books, pictured above, and the club has helped cultivate a thriving community of comics fans.

Mayor Visits - continued from 25

each member of that group was challenged to visit a local school to see the work of the academies. During her visit, she got to meet with a group of students to hear about their experience, take a tour of the building, and visit with some staff. Through that, she mentioned her excitement about the City of Knoxville’s Safety Complex going in adjacent to Fulton as well as opportunities for all of our other academies as well. She was very excited about the possibility of FulCom also getting to be a media sponsor for the grand opening of the Safety Complex soon.

As we look toward the future, Fulton will continue to provide great off campus experiences for students, impactful exposure to students based upon their interests, the opportunity to deepdive in an elective area of the student’s choosing. The exciting part about the district launch is that it provides great support for us to provide guaranteed opportunities to every student in the building. For more information, you can visit knoxschools.org/academies.

Parking Passes -continued from page 52

The initial version of this study was simple, I would conduct a count of how many student cars had parking passes and how many that did not, and get the ratio of cars that had passes to ones that were missing them. Unfortunately, this study was blocked by FHS administrators. Instead, I decided to simply ask the main office staff who sell the passes if I could be provided with the sales figures from this year.

Instead of getting the statistics from them, I was pointed in the direction of our executive principal, Seth Smith. This route is even better than my original plan for the study as the sales figures are coming directly from the school principal himself. With this, I finally got my answer from Mr. Smith on how many passes we sold this year, and I could never anticipate the number I was going to receive. Two. Two student parking passes were sold this school year.

To be clear, from the get-go I expected the count to be low, but two parking passes? Across two designated parking lots, across an entire fleet of student drivers, only two of them have the supposedly mandatory parking passes? I wanted to find out why the number was so low by asking student drivers directly. For one anonymous driver, parking passes are simply a school-wide scam.

When asked how they feel about the passes, they told us that “the school is just wanting to profit off of its students” and that all parking passes do is “[keep] a student from getting to school... because they can’t afford a parking pass.” know where the money goes, and another anonymous teacher told me that it is “probably for the athletics department”, and that they didn’t really know where the money goes either.

Luckily for us, this student was also one of the few who bought a pass the year that the policy was implemented. However, when I asked if they bought a pass this year, they said they did not. When asked why they skipped buying another this year, they said that the school “didn’t threaten to tow us like they did last year.” While this is true, the threats that they did make against students were baseless as well, as no students without passes had their cars towed for not paying up.

Clearly, these parking passes are seen simply as a sign of ill will by students (even the ones that buy them), so what is the point in implementing them in the first place? Well, we don’t know. Students were never told why they had to start paying for parking. We are completely in the dark about the motive of charging us $45 a year for these passes, especially when they were free for decades before the change! Even worse, teachers don’t know where the money goes either!

I wanted to know the real reason behind these parking passes, so I decided to ask Mr. Smith directly. However, I regret to inform you that when I asked him for an interview about this, all I received in return was radio silence, no contact back since.

So, with the absence of reasoning for the policy change along with the lack of enforcement of the rule, students just don’t pay for them because they think they’re being scammed. In reality, the students who DO pay for parking passes really ARE being scammed, even if that isn’t the intention. Since virtually no students buy them, and staff don’t care about enforcing them, the two people who paid their share to park are out a lot of money for zero benefits over pass-skippers.

One teacher that I asked about the subject, who will remain anonymous, said that they do not

If we want to solve this problem, we should just get rid of parking passes altogether and refund the students who bought them. The parking pass system is completely unfair to the people who actually pay, how few and far between they may be. No one benefits from these passes, and the only way to not lose is to just act like they don’t exist, and that’s what the vast majority of students do. How unintentional it may be, the parking pass system at this school is a blatant scam, and doing nothing to fix this is active participation in it. With a policy so sudden and with no rationale provided to students nor teachers as to why they were implemented in the first place, and with how pointless it has turned out to be, there is only one good way of earning back the trust of students; ditch the passes, pay back the kids who paid for them, and let this all fade away into Fulton history. Otherwise, students’ (and teachers’) faith in the school’s integrity will only get worse.