Do mental illnesses belong on TeacherVue?

mental health?

through and sometimes students deny needing help when they truly need it,” Mullens said. Astronomy and earth science teacher Alison Wulff, however, has a slightly different opinion. “I feel like it would be helpful but I know with the stigmatization of mental health stuff, that student’s might not be comfortable with that information being shared. So, it might be helpful, but I think what’s more helpful would be teachers taking the time to get to know their students each as individuals and from that I feel like students would be more comfortable talking with the teacher and figuring it out that way. So it’s the student’s comfort level with it,” Wulff said. Students who struggle with their mental health can sometimes feel like a burden for expressing their feelings. That could be because it doesn’t seem like schools care about their struggles by ignoring them. Schools preach mental health awareness by doing very basic lessons telling kids to just exercise more, meditate, or quit stressing about things like their schoolwork.

Schools say that as they proceed to assign multiple assignments for seven classes all due by 11:59 pm the next day. Block scheduling does give more time to complete these assignments, but some teachers feel the need to assign more assignments now that they miss a day of class.

To ease some of the stress of extra homework, history teacher Teri Daugherty offers extensions and helps to cut down on the amount of homework a student has. “I would still grade it the same way, but maybe what I’m asking of them, or requiring of them may be different. Instead of showing me six problems to show me you know it, how about you just do three, then we can talk about the rest and that generally is a pretty acceptable plan,” Daugherty said. Acknowledging that a student’s feelings are valid and real, and providing teachers with background on a student’s struggles instead of forcing them to pressure the kids into telling them exactly what’s going on with them, is beneficial to the teachers, and removes some of the pressure on the students. It’s not always easy for students to just come out and say that they have mental illnesses and that they don’t know how to deal with in the middle of class. Giving the students’ mental illnesses information to teachers will help them understand a student’s mental health and make the students feel heard.

photos by Alek Mackey

Amy Brown

“What I do [to help kids stuggling], especially in my advisory, when we have those lessons about mental health, I think it’s important to share my own journey with mental health because if I’m willing to share about it, it takes away a bit of that stigma. And it is so pervasive everyone thinks it’s an individual, I’m the only one experiencing this, I can’t can’t share it with anyone, because no one shares it. So if I share my own journey, it helps others realize they aren’t alone. And I try to get to know them one on one, so if they do need to talk”

Alison Wulff

“I feel like if you take away the opportunity to turn in the work, then you’re taking away a learning opportunity for that student, because if they aren’t going to get the points, it’s not going to change for the grade, I feel like there’s less motivation to actually do it, then they just have that gap in knowledge instead of doing the work even though it’s late and learning.” Freshman Avery Mullens

“Absolutely, I think it would be extremely vital [to see mental illnesses on the roster] especially if there’s something that I could do to help or to facilitate some sort of change that needed to happen.”

Teri Daugherty

“For a lot of times, the kids just feel overwhelmed, so a lot of times it’s simply just a reduction in work or the type of work. A lot of times they’ll be doing oral homework, come in and talk about it with me instead of writing an eight page paper. That would help a lot of kids.”

“On occasion I do [have kids approach me about their mental health], but that’s more rare than me pulling them out and asking. A lot of times, kids who are struggling with mental health don’t have the confidence to say something or, and confidence may be the wrong word, the interest in telling me, or the ability. So THE EYRIE

FEATURE MAY 6-7, 2021

Students unsatisfied with advisory lessons

“I think they need to focus on creating a comfortable environment for our upcoming freshies because this year was rough and I know next year will be too and I know a lot of freshmen feel overwhelmed and lost.”

-Iris Recinos-Franco, 11

“[Advisory is] not hard, it’s just time consuming. It’s never a thing that stresses me out; it just gives me less time to work on actual work.”

-Grace Bartlett, 9

“I think the advisory board should include more upbeat activities that students participate in. This could include fun little games that simply boost students’ attitudes—they could even be quirky computer games!”

-Alyssa Deleon, 12 Photos by Alek Mackey By: Cael Baumgarten and Emily Gray lesson is not going to stop ally failing, there’s something Since the first advisory lesson someone.” more going on that most in the fall of 2017, students Advisory cuts into advisory teachers are not have received over 100 lectime that students could going to be able to have an tures about topics like organi- spend productively, which impact on.” zation, mental health, careers, would ironically reduce their Hardgree also stresses and more. Though these all stress. Senior Alyssa Deleon the importance of a good are important subjects that believes that the timing of environment to talk about are largely ignored in school the lessons hinders student the deeper issues explored curriculum otherwise, dis- engagement. during advisory, like mental satisfaction is rampant amid “I feel that a little part of the health and academic dishonthe 30 minutes that precede reason why students don’t esty. many a seminar. participate in advisory ac- “Depression, lying, cheating, Junior Iris Recinos-Franco tivities is because it falls right kids are not going to open notes a lack of before seminar,” up and talk to you about appeal to the students in the “Everyone is in Deleon said. “Everyone is that unless you’re working with a group of kids that lectures, making the homework in the home- feel it’s safe,” Hardgree said. them forgettable and easy to work mentality already and has mentality already “I know we can’t just have every kid say ‘I wanna work ignore. “I don’t think anyone parthings to get done.“ Lessons involvand has things to get done.“ with ‘blank’ but we’re smart enough to figure out which kids we need to come up ticularly enjoys ing Xello are with an intervention for and cheesy info- particularly then do something about it.” mercials from contentious. our administrators,” Reci- Most students agree the quesnos-Francos said. “I don’t tions and recommendations remember any of the hand- are often unhelpful, overlong, outs in advisory because they and sometimes wildly inachaven’t really been super curate, supposing they even beneficial to me.” complete the assignment. Recinos-Franco is also tired “Most of the time, the site of the superfluous activities doesn’t even load,” Deleon after three years of repetition. said. “When it does, I feel “The lessons are forced into completing the usually things that I was activities. I don’t spend time previously aware of, espe- looking at my results which cially as an upperclassman,” makes the entire process of Recinos-Franco said. “I think doing it worthless.” most of the lessons should be QUEST teacher Helen Students aren’t the only ones for freshmen, I know a lot of Hardgree wants to see im- who feel as though advisory them could use that informa- provements in the lessons, could be more helpful. Engtion.” too. She believes, echoing the lish teacher Brian Hubbard But freshman Grace plight of so many students, joined the advisory board Bartlett seems to disagree. To that much of what is taught is in 2018 during his first year her, the lessons are not only unnecessary and unhelpful, teaching at Olathe South. repetitive, but also fruitless. and if they haven’t adapted “I had been in “It’s always the same thing, to the difficulties of high volved with an advisory type over and over again,” Bartlett school by their junior or program at a different school said. “We don’t need another senior year, it will take more and I really embraced the lesson on how to stop being than a half hour lecture to get idea,” Hubbard said. mean or to stand up for a the students back on track. In order to create friend. Either the person will “I don’t think there needs the lessons that teachers presstop [being mean] or they to be a grade check day for ent, the advisory board has to won’t, a 30 minute video seniors,” Hardgree said. “The keep in mind how much time majority of kids that are re- they have.

“If used correctly, the whole idea is [the teachers] [are] building close relationships with students and creating an incredibly close bond.”

“We only have 20 minutes so we have to keep it in the time, which leads to a lot of compromise in lesson planning,” Hubbard said. “We usually start with the goal in mind and work backwards.” Hubbard stated that a common misconception is that all lessons come from the school district when in reality the lessons can come from teachers and the counseling staff as well. For example, the organization lesson was specific directly to Olathe South because teachers were talking about how unorganized students were. While Hubbard has high hopes for what advisory could eventually be, he does agree that it is not as beneficial as it could be to the students right now. “We never got the buy-in from teachers, faculty, and students which caused a push back against it,” Hubbard said. However, Hubbard does think that advisory could become something important to the students in the future. “If used correctly, the whole idea is [the teachers] [are] building close relationships with students and creating an incredibly close bond,” Hubbard said. Counselor Jean Busey has similar ideals towards the future of advisory. “The purpose of an advisory program is first and foremost to ensure that at least one adult in the school is getting to know each student well, making sure that learning needs are being met, and encouraging students to make good academic changes and plans for the future,” Busey said. Busey worked in a school previously where they had a very successful advisory program and she hopes that eventually South could be like that as well. She does

“Have a team of people working together that includes the kids. Since they are the people we are trying to reach, they should be part of the conversation when making plans.”

-Helen Hardgree, Staff

“We’ve been told that next year, the district wants to take more control and have more district wide lessons throughout all of the schools.”

-Brian Hubbard, Staff

I would love for kids to be more involved because it shouldn’t be an isolated conversation between adults. Plus, we can make the advisory lessons more pointed to our school.”

-Jean Busey, Staff

believe, however, that there have been some challenges with getting advisory to be functional enough to have an impact on the students. “Unfortunately, not all teachers and students have given it much of a chance to experience its benefits,” Busey said. Although there have been struggles, Busey thinks that there will eventually be a successful advisory program implemented at the high school level. “The primary goal of the advisory program is to develop a supportive relationship between each student and a faculty advisor,” Busey said. “This relationship, while improving student attendance, attitudes, and achievement, will also encourage healthy decision making and fostering a deeper sense of community among the student body. Plus, it’s something we have to do anyway so we might as well make the best of it.” THE EYRIE

With laptops lacking in every way,

By: Gavin McAferty

I think we all remember the rumor that students in the Olathe School District would be given Macbooks vividly. Then enrollment came around and we found out that they would either get Chromebooks or Dell laptops instead. Finally, for whatever reason they came to the conclusion that we would all use Dell laptops which were issued in the fall of 2018. Zoom seems to take a lot away from what the laptop is capable of doing, slowing it down and making it extremely hard to move around programs quickly. People have experienced lag and other frustrating annoyances while being in zooms using our current laptops. Not good for the thousands of students participating in online school. The model of the laptop is the Dell Latitude 3168 with an 11.6 inch touch screen. Some common reviews or complaints about the current computers from people outside of the district are that they are very slow, have poor graphic acceleration, and a poor refresh rate. Everyone loves the touch screens on their phones, but there isn’t much of a point of it being a component on a laptop. It can be very aggravating when the computer has a lapse in judgment and goes to tablet mode when you’re clearly trying to use the keyboard dock.

Touch screens aren’t much of a need according to more than half of the students in a survey given during advisory. Everyone surveyed agreed that 18 THE EYRIE

photo courtesy of Apple Apple described their MacBook Air as “Our thinnest, lightest notebook, completely transformed by the Apple M1 chip. CPU speeds up to 3.5x faster.” The MacBooks would be a welcome addition to the Olathe School District, especially in comparison to the currently-issued Dell laptops.

we need new laptops, although the reasoning might be that the MacBooks are simply better, it’s actually because we’ve already used these laptops for a while and a replacement is necessary. The laptop lacks in size and capability and the screen is the same size as my hand. It’s also very frustrating when it disconnects from the school WiFi during a lesson. The storage is very limited due to the size of the hard drive. Grant Braddock, who is an online student gave his insight and opinion on the school laptops. “My problem with the laptops is that they’re incredibly slow.”

Even with Google Fiber-wired internet at his residency, the laptops still failed to provide sufficient productiveness. “WiFi doesn’t get faster than that, so I know it’s the computer,” says Braddock. The laptop has been at fault for Braddock being late to class on multiple occasions. “They have made me late to my Zoom classes before because it takes eight minutes to load everything,” Braddock said. Survey respondents expressed the same frustration with the laptops. Samantha Scharsch said the biggest con of the computer is the short battery life. Other common complaints consisted of the WiFi disconnecting frequently and that the laptops are insanely slow. Of the six students surveyed, five said that they were under the impression that they would be getting Apple MacBooks. When asked the question “If you were in the position to decide which laptop we received, which one would you choose?” Many responded with just “MacBooks”, but others went into greater detail. “I would go with Macs. I have a personal Mac and that’s what we use at school for editing in the pub lab. They run pretty well and can hold a lot of storage... the Apple MacBooks are just so much easier to use!” said Halley Garcia. While it may appear they are advocating for the removal of laptops, they are actually in favor of getting rid of the current devices and replacing them with Macbook Airs or Chromebooks. Without laptops, students would be increasingly left behind. With many students, having their own laptop made it easier

MacBooks a good alternative

to do things like take notes, work on assignments, study, research, or even just stay in touch with friends. However, it is incredibly frustrating when the issued laptops load slowly and struggle to connect to WiFi. Macs are well-built computers, more specifically, the MacBook Air. Any MacBook should be capable of completing any academic task at a high frame rate. For most students, the MacBook Air is the best choice and will perform well throughout their high school career. The MacBook Air is everything you need and more. The 13-inch laptop weighs in at 2.75 pounds, so it’s essentially the same dimensions as the current laptop with better software. The laptop includes eight gigabytes of RAM , which is enough to multitask at a fast rate. Finally, there’s the software; MacOS runs well on any MacBook and is packed full of useful features. It supports not only Apple’s own apps but also Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity apps, as well as a library of excellent thirdparty apps. While they are quite expensive, Apple does provide certified refurbished laptops for anywhere from two hundred to three hundred dollars cheaper. Refurbished items arrive with complete documentation, and every unit is inspected to meet Apple’s quality standards.

Additionally, MacBooks are the longest lasting laptop on the market currently so the district shouldn’t be too worried about replacing them anytime soon. The suggestion Zoom has become a big part of students’ lives over the past two years and for it to not work efficiently just won’t cut it. A backup plan shouldn’t fail. photo courtesey of Zoom Blog photo taken by Andrea Martin An Olathe North student’s district-issued laptop, a Dell Ltitude 3168. The Olathe School District launched the laptops in fall 2018 and have been riddled with issues since.

isn’t too far fetched, because other districts in the area already do this and would contribute to a more productive school day. The Kansas City Kansas School District exclusively has MacBooks provided for their students. In 2007, KCK was capable of launching a MacBook program as one of the poorer districts in the Kansas City area, where more than 75 percent of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunches. Kansas City Kansas Public Schools, gave every high school student and teacher a laptop, about 5,400 systems total. They spent around $8 million over four years. This paid for leased laptops, WiFi, and other technology upgrades. Heather Springer, a teacher at Olathe South, was formerly a teacher in KCK and said they still used MacBooks when she was there for her last year in 2018. Students and teachers were issued 13” MacBook Airs during her tenure. “I believe the Mac worked better than the current student laptops.” Springer is currently issued a MacBook Air along with being in a Mac lab for a majority of her days as a publications advisor. With that being said, a direct comparison between the two that is helpful in determining which is truly better is that when talking about the Dell laptops, she said, “I struggle using them. I often hit keys I don’t intend to due to the size of the laptop and often find the trackpad to be laggy or unresponsive.” Springer said.