Off The Record RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG
HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903
APRIL 5TH, 2019 || VOLUME 116, ISSUE 22
School cancelled next week due to rain forecast
Nelson Gaillard Staff Writer
While AgriMann members were tilling Alumni field yesterday afternoon, a yeezyobsessed freshman, walking along Tibbett Avenue from Olshan to Lutnick café, felt a drop of rain, he said, before taking an Uber XL home. An hour later, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly’s email about a “Rain Week” shook First Class inboxes. “AgriMann’s tractor caught my attention, so I turned my head and what did I see? The tractor, obviously,” hypebeast said. “But above the tractor, a cloud.” “It looked ominous, so I thought I’d email Bartels,” he said. “I also saw the cloud while I wasn’t paying attention and knitting during English,” an anxiety-ridden-because-spring-isencroaching-like-my-alarm-at-6am junior said. “I saw my GPA on Naviance the period before and dropped a stitch in my scarf, so my anxiety was already through the roof,” she added. Since November’s Snow-pocalypse a few
months ago and a collective 184 pairs of ruined Balenciaga and Golden Goose sneakers, the school’s administration has been taking every precaution to prevent future incidents like these. “I’m actually still on my way home,” a sixth grader mentioned over a Facebook Messenger interview. “I’m only few minutes away tho,” he added. A sophomore said that he couldn’t keep maxing out his dad’s credit card with Ubers to and from school in inclement weather or else he’d limit his postmates purchases, he said. According to an “anonymous” survey sent out by the Record on Uber prices during the “snow incident,” two percent of students’ Ubers costed less than $100, but the other 98% paid more than $250 for an Uber into Manhattan. “I would pay $400 if I had to,” a junior said. “I don’t know what I’d do if I had to walk more than a block in the rain.” The cloud doesn’t only pose a threat for students, but also local businesses. Moss Cafe and Bella Notte are closing for the upcoming week of April 8th because their main sources of income are seeking shelter at Nobu
and Jean-Georges instead. “This is devastating for our workers and our business,” Bella Notte Manager Mr. Penne said. Yesterday morning, the official email announcing a rain week slid into MD and UD First Class. “You have a free week in April, how do you spend it?” the CoCo’s College Survey asked. “I wasn’t planning on coming to school anyway that week,” a second semester senior said. “I think my teacher said we might have a quiz on Friday, and my skin is way too clear to deal with stress.” “I’ve been getting way too much sleep,” a wrap-line-cutting freshman said. “So, this extra week will allow me more time to rekindle my Snap Streaks.” A junior, unmotivated and somehow living with senioritis, was unaware of the rain week until this interview. “No way. I’ll prolly just stream Fortnite on Twitch with my grandma’s cat,” he said. With their free week, a senior and his friends are looking forward to going back to PI, he said. “It’ll be nice to not have to do work next week. Not that I do work anyway, but...you
know what I mean,” he added. “PI never dies!” Many students believe the rain was a direct violation of their inherent right to a safe and secure environment. “If I slip on the pavement, I’m calling Cellino & Barnes faster than you can say personal injury lawsuit.” “I don’t think Dr. Kelly could have made a better decision,” a freshman declared. “I need a lot more time to align my chakra.”
Juli Moreira/Art Director
Missing item email: Students’ motivation Kiara Royer Staff Writer A day at school wouldn’t be a typical one if a ‘missing item’ email isn’t sent out by one of the deans. Students have lost a variety of items, including Moncler jackets, an $84.2 million mansion in the Hamptons, and 2/5 of the school’s Core Values; however, an item that has long been considered invaluable has now gone missing: the students’ motivation. Yesterday, the Upper Division Dean of Students sent a frantic email to the school asking if anyone had any information about where the students’ inspiration went. According to statistics provided by the school, students’ grades have decreased almost 20% when mid-semester grades came out; the Upper
Division’s B+ average has now dropped to a C-. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Facilities Management Staff have been scurrying around campus waving lacrosse sticks, trying to trap the missing motivation. One student spotted Head of Facilities Management I. M. Kleen ensnared in a fencing dual with a squirrel on the steps outside of Lutnick Hall. According to an anonymous source, the school has even attempted to Postmates the missing motivation; however, it has not appeared on the menus at Bella Notte, Broadway Joe’s or Riverdale Diner. Now that they haven’t been given sufficient attention or praise by their students, teachers have been losing their minds.
Gabby Fischberg/Staff Artist
“No one is doing my 147 page history source reading; it’s almost as if no one cares about the Chesapeake Bay,” a history teacher said, crumpling up an essay with a grade of ‘-18’ written in the corner. “Just last period, I saw someone climb the library desks and swing from the lamps hanging from the ceiling,” a bewildered librarian said. “I have no idea what’s gotten into them. My guess? The Lutnick café’s coffee is spiked with something.” The senior now spends her time after school tilling the soil on Alumni Field as inspiration for Agrimann, the school’s Agriculture and Farming Equipment Magazine. “I’d rather be actively re-enacting the lives of 17th century peasants instead of reading about them in a textbook,” she said as she wiped her brow. “We have dance classes instead of gym, so I think farming should become an optional class as well.” After receiving the second College Survey sent out by the College Counseling office a few days go, a dejected junior gave up on ever starting or finishing the questionnaire. “I just finished the first one, and now they send out another?” a junior wearing a Harvard University sweatshirt with Duke University sweatpants said. “I was so stressed about college before, but I think at this point I’m going to wing it. After all, what could go wrong?” Instead of attending school, the junior will start to work full time at Goldman Sachs next week, and the student invests his weekly allowance of $30,000 into the stock market. One freshman said that he lost his motivation after going all out on Project X. “Every single day I was just fighting to stay alive. My spoon was my armor, but the game almost took my soul,” the freshman said. “I had
to peek around every corner and hide in bushes; I really lost my motivation for schoolwork during that week, and so it affected me after the game was over too.” He is now preparing to win Project X next year, so his daily four hour spoon poking practice after school doesn’t leave a lot of time to study for tests, the freshmen said. According to a survey sent out by The Record, 97% of the student body responded feeling a drastic lack of motivation compared to the first semester. The last time this number was so high was in 1975, when the school became coeducational, as students began ogling the newly admitted female students’ exposed shoulders and lost concentration in class. One science teacher has been working overtime to try and locate the missing motivation. After his elaborate plan involving chemicals found underneath Four Acres and the NSA agent tracking his Facebook activity failed, the teacher has resulted to simply praying to the Snow Gods before A period everyday. “How can we have a secure and healthful environment and a good balance between individual achievement and a caring community if the students don’t even want to learn?” the science teacher said, nervously flipping through the school’s Family Handbook to search for an answer. While the teachers are frantically trying to solve the problem, the students have a different mindset. “I have no idea how to regain my motivation, and to be honest, I don’t really care,” a sophomore said, yawning. “I’ve stopped doing homework and just play Big Fish, and it’s honestly taught me more lessons about life than school has.”
Changed wifi password at Dorr sparks outrage Ranya Sareen & Mayanka Dhingra Staff Writers Enraged students at John Dorr Nature Laboratory (Dorr) are in open rebellion. They are prolonging the length of hot showers from five to six minutes after an unexpected change to the Wifi password sparked mutiny amongst the student body. News of the password change circulated last week after the Varsity Ping Pong team held their first annual team bonding weekend at the off-campus site. Since then, various team members have expressed their discontent. “The administration needs to know that we are infuriated and won’t go down without a fight,” Celine-O N. Barnes (9)
said. “Ping Pong is an Olympic sport by the way.” The “forced face to face interaction” caused by the lack of internet connection, prompted many team members to speak to one another about topics they had never discussed before, causing acute distress on the team, Ping Pong team Captain Broad Waychoes (11) said. Now, students are demanding a change on the basis of the School’s core values: a balance between individual achievement and a caring community. Dunky DoNuts (12) believes she was “robbed” of her ability to celebrate her recent success in completing the CAT after trying to conquer the obstacle course over 337 individual attempts during her career at the school, she said.
When DoNuts went to livestream her achievement, she was appalled by the “failed to connect” notification on her iPhone, that she fell off the climbing structure, breaking her pinky toe on the fall, she said. After this event the Varsity Ping Pong team and DoNuts, along with a cohort of displeased students, decided to storm Dorr at night to take control of the facilities. Students are now taking record-long showers and disobeying the laws of beauty and order. “It’s ugliness and chaos from here on, bros.” DoNuts said. “So much for safe and secure,” Mont Claire (10) said. “The network is most definitely not secure.”