The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper
Volume 112 No. 9
January 25, 2021 OPINIONS
stuyspec.com ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Old Plays, Modern Ideas
The Emergence of Abstract Art
Opinions writer Ivy Huang explains the revolutionary way Shakespeare approached gender in his plays, and how that has in turn paralleled her own gender identity.
Whether it’s oversimplified or too obscure, there are an overwhelming number of critiques and interpretations of an abstract artwork’s meaning. But how did abstractionism come to be?
see page 22
see page 16
Omicron Variant Causes New Schoolwide Policies and Updates tending school if they are negative and asymptomatic. Students are now to report
By LAUREN CHIN, OLIVIA HAVEN, MADISON KIM, JINA KOH, and FIONA SHI
interview. Because the Omicron variant is more contagious, Stuyvesant has
Ibtida Khurshed / The Spectator
As the Omicron variant causes COVID-19 cases to surge, Stuyvesant has implemented new policies and enforced existing ones to ensure the safety of students and staff members. In addition to daily health screenings and a mask mandate, students are encouraged to remain socially distanced when possible. Additionally, Stuyvesant distributed at-home test kits for the school community and implemented new quarantining policies. Previously, students who tested positive for COVID-19 had to email Director of Family Engagement Dina Ingram and Assistant Principal of Security, Health, and Physical Education Brian Moran of their case. They would then forward the information to the Situation Room, the Department of Education’s (DOE) response agency responsible for tracking positive COVID-19 cases and possible close contacts. Students who test positive are to quarantine for at least 10 days while students who are identified as close contacts are to get tested and can continue at-
positive results directly to a Google Form to make the tracking process more efficient. “This information assists us in getting cases reported to the DOE’s Situation Room in a more timely fashion, having an accurate quarantine list for teachers, counselors and the attendance office as well as get information to families on return dates in a timely manner,” Ingram said in an e-mail
seen a large spike in COVID-19 cases as students returned from winter break. A total of 416 positive cases were reported since the start of the new year as of January 14—about 2000 percent more than the number of cases reported before winter break. To minimize the spread, students who are symptomatic are encouraged to stay home. “We want
Stuyvesant Students Organize Citywide Walkout ings. Over 20 schools participated in the walkout, with some schools, like Brooklyn Tech, having over 400 students walk out. “A walkout is much more disruptive,” Farrow
Classrooms once packed with students and teachers have been replaced with a new reality. As the spread of the Omicron variant surged throughout New York City, many classrooms were left emptier than usual due to an increase in absences and a shortage of staff members to keep schools functioning. Though some specialized high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School and Brooklyn Technical High School, have had higher attendance rates than the averages, this trend is not reflected throughout all public schools. The citywide attendance rate as of January 19 was 81 percent. In light of these circumstances, juniors Samantha Farrow, Rifah Saba, and Cruz Warshaw organized a citywide walkout to garner public attention for a temporary closure of schools until it becomes safer to attend. ¨Our goal is to temporarily close schools for one or two weeks so that we won’t have to use the shutting down of schools as a last resort like last [year] and face months of remote learning. I’d rather face one or two weeks of remote learning rather than an extended period of remote learning,” Saba said. The walkout occurred January 11 at 11:52 a.m. and was designed for students citywide to collectively leave schools to protest against the continuation of school open-
ers and government officials, so we needed as much attention as possible,” Saba said. “It was successful in getting the attention of policymakers. The chancellor had
Courtesy of Isabella Jia
By ISABELLA JIA Additional reporting by Momoca Mairaj
said. “Doing it in the middle of the day and visually seeing [students] walk out has a big visual impact.” Given the visual impact, the organizers hoped a walkout would bring more exposure to the Omicron surge in schools and lead to governmental action. “We were trying to garner the attention of people in power like policymak-
“The Pulse of the Student Body”
representatives reach out to us, but that’s just the first step, so I would say our work isn’t done yet.” The momentum and support for the walkout came largely from social media and widespread continued on page 4
to stress to families that if a student does not feel well, stay home. Academics can wait and be made up. Do not come to school if you are not feeling well,” Ingram said. Close contacts who are asymptomatic or do not have a positive test result from a COVID test will now no longer have to quarantine and are permitted to attend school. Stuyvesant has also distributed rapid at-home test kits with instruction sheets to all students. Students identified as close contacts or who are symptomatic are asked to take a test first and, if they test negative, to take another test five days later. Otherwise, test kits should be stored until they become necessary. “We plan to distribute these kits to students once per week. Staff also [receive] these kits once per week,” Ingram said. The administration also canceled all in-person after-school activities with the exception of scheduled PSAL games without spectators and certain activities approved to hold meetings, such as Robotics and the Stuyvesant The-
NEWSBEAT The Board of Regents and New York State Education Department canceled all Regents exams for January 2022, replacing the week of January 24 with instructional learning. Senior Nina Shin was named one of the top 300 scholars of the Regeneron Science Talent Search 2022 for her project “Using Immunophenotyping to Investigate Mumps Virus Infection of Natural Killer Cells.” Social studies teacher Robert Sandler attended an Academy of Teachers Master Class on the backstory of “Maus” led by its author, Art Spiegelman. A new mural has been painted by the artist Vexta on Stuyvesant’s fourth floor.
continued on page 2
Mental Health: One Semester Down, One to Go By SARAH DIAZ, CRAIG CHEN, IAN KIM, MARY LEE, and SARAH HUYNH Additional reporting by Karen Zhang The abrupt transition to remote learning was a challenge for many students, and the entirety of the 2020-21 on-line school year exacerbated the issue of students’ mental well-being. Throughout the semester, the administration introduced various mental health initiatives to help ease students back to in-person learning. In spite of this, concerns surrounding mental health continue to be raised as the semester nears its conclusion. A discussion about mental health was sparked among the student body by a Facebook post by junior Julia Williams in January 2021. Williams created the post—which garnered over 370 comments and nearly 500 reactions—to address the lack of resources provided to students to help them manage the workload remotely. “Stuyvesant expected kids to do an amount of work that was not dissimilar to what they would have been asked to do in in-person school,” Williams said. “Some kids were able to do it, but the people who were struggling a lot were not being given ways out.” In the time since Williams’s post, the administration and counseling office have implemented
various mental health programs and resources, such as partnerships with MyRobin—an organization that provides lessons led by mental health coaches on coping mechanisms and techniques to promote healthy habits—and Counseling in Schools (CIS), which provides an additional clinician in the school five days a week. The new counseling staff hopes that their presence will provide additional support to students. For example, CIS counselor and art therapist Sapphire Chao began holding group art therapy sessions available after school this semester. “Some students have never seen their classmates until this year, so that’s why we want to have a place that’s more natural to meet other people,” Chao said. “It’s partly that we want students to relax, but on the other hand, we want students to connect and support each other.” Alongside art therapy, Chao also holds individual sessions with students and parents, in which she listens to their major concerns and helps students understand themselves. “I do hear lots of students talking about how much stress they have from school, but on the other hand, I also have students come to me to figure out who they are, including sexual and racial identity, or it could be about their interests continued on page 4