Some teachers offer tutoring
Boys soccer Girls’ swimming at State
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Monday, December 9, 2019 Volume 93 Issue 4 St. Louis Park High School 6425 W. 33rd Street St. Louis Park, MN 55426
SLPECHO.COM
Wi-Fi problems affect school productivity Classrooms face difficulties Kaia Myers kaiamyers@slpecho.com
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Photo Carissa Prestholdt
Speak out: Sophomores Amal Abdi, Mei Huynh, Matthew Ikola and senior Amaya Fokuo discuss their feelings about how race impacts their lives and identity. SOAR hosted a meeting for students to have the opportunity to discuss race Nov. 25. According to Lee-Ann Stephens, the meeting was to begin to normalize conversations about race in the community.
SOAR initiates discussion Club brings students together to normalize racial conversations Gabriel Kaplan & Maria Perez-Barriga gabrielkaplan@slpecho.com mariaperezbarriga@slpecho.com
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s freshman Sharon Lunasilva reflected on the in-school Students Organized for Anti-Racism event, she said she hasn’t felt comfortable discussing race in school, but the event gave her the opportunity to talk about her past experiences. “As a mixed person, race is something that I’m really passionate about,” Lunasilva said. “It’s good to have an environment where you can talk about (racial issues) freely without feeling uncomfortable.” According to Students Organized for Anti-Racism (SOAR) adviser Lee-Ann Stephens, SOAR drew roughly 70 people to its meeting Nov. 25 in order to foster discussions surrounding race. “Although race is a social construct, the meaning of it is lived out every single day. It’s important for us to know other people’s stories and other people’s perspectives around race,” Stephens said. “The more we know, the less fear we have, the less assumptions we make, the less biases we have. The more we talk about it, the more we are brought together.” The SOAR meeting offered students the opportunity to learn the impact of race on the learning environment and students’ general experiences within Park, according to freshman attendee Cecilia Meyen. “We were talking about how race affects us and our experiences, how race is portrayed in schools and how we feel in school talking about race with our teachers and
other peers,” Meyen said. “It was a really safe environment. It was like everybody was there for a reason and we were all comfortable talking about (race).” Lunasilva said attendees also looked into how to initiate broader conversations surrounding race within Park, however, it is ultimately the responsibility of each student to educate themselves. “A lot of the seniors proposed (ideas for) what the school could do to bring more awareness about race,” Lunasilva said. “Everyone is their own indiThe more we talk vidual person and they about (race), the have their own mindset and their own morals, more normalized it so even if you did make will be and the less programs, you couldn’t fear students will go around changing have of saying the every single student in the wrong thing. school.” Stephens said it is imLee-Ann Stephens, portant to normalize disSOAR adviser cussions of race through
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learning environments, as well as organizing events such as SOAR meetings. “It’s not racist to talk about race,” Stephens said. “Race is very much a part of how we live our lives and how we navigate space and time. The more we talk about it, the more normalized it will be and the less fear students will have of saying the wrong thing.” Stephens said SOAR will continue to create space for conversation surrounding race and hopes to involve more students in the future. “I heard students really wanting to do it again,” Stephens said. “They really appreciated having the space to be able to have the conversation, which they haven’t felt they’ve really been able to have.”
itting down to write his English essay, senior Ben Bryan was frustrated not by the essay assignment but by the lack of Wi-Fi. “In my English class, the Wi-Fi went out for a solid 30 minutes and we had an essay (due) that we really needed to get done. It made things a lot more time consuming,” Bryan said. “It’s made classes more difficult when we’re trying to work on projects or essays.” As Principal Scott Meyers reflected on the Wi-Fi issues, he said they are caused by a moving target problem on what to fix. “There have been times throughout the school year where it’s been our internal issues. Then, there’s been issues with internet service providers in this area, so this whole area’s had some issues,” Meyers said. “Then, there are issues with external factors where Google or Microsoft or Apple set up their updates to pull at different times, and then when they go to update, it creates this huge pull on all of our devices.” Social studies teacher Jillian Merkle said the problems with the Wi-Fi can present challenges as she’s had to adjust her class plan. “I’ve had a couple days, especially at the beginning of the year, where what we were doing was pretty much all on the internet and so I had to, in the middle of class, completely change my lesson plan,” Merkle said. Merkle said she’s mindful of the WiFi going down and plans paper alternatives to her online lesson plan. “What I’ll do now is if there’s something where I know that I am pretty reliant on (the internet), I’ll print off another thing that we could do just in case something does happen,” Merkle said. Meyers said the school’s technicians are working to address the issues as they arise and discover what the problem is. “I can definitely attest they are working hard on it, trying to figure it out but its elusive because the target keeps changing. I’m hopeful they can figure things out, because I know it’s been really frustrating,” Meyers said.
Photo Lucy zumBrunnen
Offline: Junior Emma Amon works on a computer in the writing lab. Students have been experiencing Wi-Fi issues.