The Lowell Newsmagazine October 2019 by The Lowell

Lowell The

October 2019

OUR FUTURES ARE AT STAKE.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

Locker Room Theft: What you can do about it

Fruit fly fiasco

BELLA DELOA

KIMBERLY YEE

PHOTOS: Cardinals lose to Bears at home

LAUREN CALDWELL

VISIT THE WEBSITE: THELOWELL.ORG

@THELOWELL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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EDITORIAL: AP Testing: Why the administration should be more transparent COVER: Faces of climate activism

PHOTOS: Show and tell of Lowell

COLUMN: Small fish, big school

OPINION: Finishing the fight for Ethnic Studies

COVER: Spread illustration by Amy Marcopulos

SPREAD DESIGN BY SEAMUS GEOGHEGAN

FEATURE: The scoop on skipping

Lowell The

EDITORIAL

AP Testing:

Why the Lowell administration should be more transparent

“W

e just had our laptops out and they had us join their class [on the College Board site],” said an anonymous junior with regards to the new AP Classroom online resource from College Board. According to the College Board website, this feature offers “more practice materials and insight into the test than ever before,” and displays a “Streamlined Student Registration” service for AP exam coordinators. “There was no option; we just had to do [join],” he said, describing the unclarity of the situation. His experience is not unlike many other students’ this year. AP teachers have had their students sign on to the corresponding AP Classroom section using a code to identify the class they are in. Although the AP Classroom feature was implemented by College Board — the organization that owns AP exams — the Lowell administration made the decision to automatically pre-register every student for their corresponding test when they join their AP Classroom section using the Streamlined Student Registration option. Pre-registering assumes that all students who join the AP Classroom site will take the test in the spring, which was made clear by very few teachers. Even though students can avoid taking the test by not paying the $99 fee by Nov. 6, automatic registration means that instead of getting to choose whether or not to take the AP test, students have to go out of their way to opt out. This is representative of a larger problem at Lowell: the overall pressure and expectation to take AP tests. Even before the AP Classroom feature was introduced, many students felt the need to take AP tests if they took an AP course. An anonymous junior said she experienced a lot of pressure from the school and her teachers to take AP tests. “My AP [European History] teacher said, ‘If you’re in this class and you’re not taking the AP test, you’re taking up a spot for someone else,’” she said. She added that this mentality is concerning because it places more value on a single exam rather than a whole course of in depth learning and growth as a scholar. The student also said that this year, she is considering not taking her AP U.S. History exam. “In the spring semester, I’m taking [the] SAT, I’m taking three AP [exams], and I’m doing two shows,” she said. “I feel like dropping one of the AP tests will lessen my stress a little.” She is not alone in this workload. According to a poll on The Lowell’s Instagram account, 76 percent of Lowell students who responded are taking anywhere from one to five or more AP classes.

Studying for and taking AP tests is not only stressful, but very expensive. The junior explained that one of the reasons she doesn’t want to take the APUSH exam is because it poses a financial hardship for her family. Although financial aid is offered to some students through California’s Free-Or-Reduced-Lunch program and through need-based scholarships made by the Lowell Alumni Association, many students still find it expensive to pay for AP exams. “With my family, our income changes a lot each year,” she said. “Some years I get free-and-reducedlunch and some years I don’t, so I’m [either] paying $300 or $30.” Students should be able to make their own decisions when it comes to something as expensive as the AP exams, without pressure from the school. As it turns out, having more students take their AP tests is in the school’s best interest. College Board provides some amount of funding for the school’s AP program, according to assistant principal Orlando Beltran. Lowell uses this funding to hire more teachers to fill the gap left by AP teachers who are only required to teach four classes rather than the usual five. Not having enough students take exams results in AP classes to potentially be cut, as well as a loss of funding for Lowell. Administering more AP tests also improves the school’s state and national rankings on many well-known websites. According to U.S. News Best High Schools, Lowell is ranked 54th in the nation and sixth in California. Thirty percent of this ranking relies on the percentage of students who have taken AP tests. As a result, some fear that normalizing not taking AP tests will result in a loss of prestige for the school. Although this is a valid concern, letting students know that they are not obligated to take the exam will not necessarily mean a drastic drop in test taking. The majority of students will continue to take their AP tests, even if they know they have the option not to, as there are still the benefits of gaining college credits and exemplifying mastery of rigorous content. Showing students all their options will only benefit the subset of students for whom the advantages of taking the test might be outweighed by the disadvantages. We believe that the Lowell administration should refrain from automatically pre-registering students, lessen the overall pressure to take AP exams, and give students more discretion in making AP test decisions. This will not harm the school; instead, it will increase transparency and avoid unnecessary stress and financial strain for many students. v

Accolades 2018 NSPA Print Pacemaker Finalist, 2014 NSPA Online Pacemaker, 2012 NSPA Print Pacemaker, 2011 NSPA All-American, 2011 NSPA Online Pacemaker, 2009 NSPA First Class Honors, 2007 NSPA Web Pacemaker, 2007 CSPA Gold Crown, 2007 NSPA All-American

v The Lowell October 2019

CARTOON

Absurd club ideas

CAMERON CHAN

FROM THE EDITOR Dear readers of The Lowell, This letter usually summarizes the articles we are excited to share with readers in our new issue, but I feel that it is only proper to dedicate this message to the passing of one of our news editors, Allison Jou. Last month, we suffered the loss of both an invaluable staff member, whom we were privileged to work with, and a sharply funny and dedicated friend. Having worked side-by-side with her and bonded over our shared goals and passions, Allyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passing has left our newsroom feeling painfully incomplete. Her impact remains palpable throughout the publication, and The Lowell will keep publishing the important articles she was working on and including her name on our masthead in order to pay homage to her legacy. Struggling to cope with the loss of such an essential and well-respected player on our team, our entire staff has come together to support each other and the publication.

The Lowell is published by the journalism classes of Lowell High School. All contents copyright Lowell High School journalism classes. All rights reserved. The Lowell strives to inform the public and to use its opinion sections as open forums for debate. All unsigned editorials are opinions of the staff. The Lowell welcomes comments on school-related issues from students, faculty and community members. Send letters to the editors to thelowellnews@gmail.com. Names will be withheld upon request. We reserve the right to edit letters before publication. The Lowell is a student-run publication distributed to thousands of readers including students, parents, teachers and alumni. All advertisement profits fund our newsmagazine issues. To advertise online or in print, email thelowellads@yahoo.com. Contact us: Lowell High School 1101 Eucalyptus Drive San Francisco, CA 94132 415-759-2730 or at thelowellnews@gmail.com

The Lowell October 2019

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SPREAD DESIGN BY JOELLE CHIEN

Editor-in-Chief, Kate Green

F O S FACE

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COVER

LAUREN CALDWELL

Silas Crocker

“C

MELLA BETTAG

v The Lowell October 2019

limate change is the farthest thing from a long-term threat at all,” said senior Silas Crocker. “It is the [biggest] threat in all of our lifetimes, it is the only threat that has ever faced the human race that is all-out extinction at its worst.” Facing what he considers to be the conceivable end of the world, Crocker sometimes feels that all of his efforts for his own education and future success are meaningless. “There are times when I sit in class, [and] I’m literally frozen,” he said. “I can’t write anything on my paper because the work I’m given is just so trivial.” This isn’t the first time that Crocker has faced a threat to his future. In June 2019, Crocker’s world was shaken when doctors found a golf ball-sized aneurysm in his brain. Told he might not make it out alive, he underwent a successful 15hour intensive surgery. Before his surgery, Crocker had long feared for the state of the environment; however, it was easier for him not to act. After he was forced to confront his own mortality, he decided that the imminent danger of climate change wasn’t something he could put off for any longer. Crocker is now an environmental activist. Following his surgery, it only took two weeks for Crocker to start his environmental campaign, Go Greenish. “I stopped procrastinating and went on to make that shit happen,” he said. Dedicating a few hours each night, Crocker quickly finished the campaign website he had been working on for over a year. Now, Go Greenish is in full swing, with a goal of making sustainable living accessible for everybody. On his website, anyone can make a pledge to pick up sustainable habits, such as using reusable containers for their lunch once a week or committing to a part- or full-time vegetarian lifestyle. After holding a table that promoted his campaign at the September 2019 Climate Strike, Crocker had a live count of over 150 pledges. Crocker’s campaign is still gaining momentum. The same weekend as the climate strike, Crocker spoke about Go Greenish at a climate event to a few hundred people and on KPFA radio 94.1. He is growing his campaign by connecting with other groups that share his goal. “I think that really hit home for a lot of people that it’s not that hard, first of all, to change something small about your life — to be more sustainable — and it’s not that hard to tell somebody else, so it spread from there exponentially,” he said. While his campaign has been building support, Crocker is no stranger to negativity. He said that people find it a lot more comforting to make fun of climate activists than to admit that the environment is facing destruction. “The fact that people trash on Priuses, the fact that people say that vegetarians are annoying, the fact that people say that Greta Thunberg is annoying, it’s terrible...and it’s so see through,” Crocker said. When he initially released his campaign on social media, someone messaged him saying that he was just a “clout chaser,” calling him a hypocrite for occasionally driving a car. “It’s honestly thoroughly disappointing that people could possibly care so little about such an important issue,” Crocker said. “But I’m not perfect and that is the point of Go Greenish. Nobody is perfect and nobody can do everything and lead a perfectly sustainable lifestyle, but nobody has any excuse to not take one more step.” Since launching his campaign, Crocker has become much more open about advocating for sustainability. Before Go Greenish existed, Crocker was uncertain about his activism and avoided conversations about the state of the environment, feeling the negative stigma surrounding it. However, after immersing himself in Go Greenish, he’s found support and respect from a lot of people. “When I became more open and said, ‘Screw it, I’m just gonna do it.’ I realized that people have accepted it a lot more warmly than I thought they would have,” Crocker said. v

COVER SPREAD ILLUSTRATION BY WARREN QUAN

MARLENA ROHDE

Sabina Lewis

rom the deli counter to the checkout line, almost everything the average consumer buys is plastic-wrapped or made with animal products. Both plastic and meat are part of most peoples’ everyday lives and avoiding them takes conscious effort. Over time, the impacts of these societal norms on the environment are becoming more apparent, with consumers discarding plastics that strangle wildlife and cattle farmers setting fires that destroy the vital ecosystems and oxygen-producing undergrowth of the Amazon rainforest. Now, there is a growing movement of people who are working to lessen their ecological footprints. Freshman Sabina Lewis is one of them. For the past two years, Lewis and her parents have been trying to go plastic-free. Although corporate grocery stores are full of packaged foods, it isn’t hard to find the few stores that are conscious of their environmental impact and specialize in minimal plastic packaging. Rainbow Grocery in South of Market, Other Avenues in the Outer Sunset, and Real Foods in Russian Hill sell a variety of goods offered in bulk that customers can purchase in reusable containers from home. For Lewis, the fact that her family is actively trying to help the environment is inspiring. “It’s only one family, we’re only three people, but do as much as you can to help, right?” Lewis said. “It makes me feel good about myself because I know that I am helping the environment, because it’s so easy just to go down the easy path and not be eco-friendly, but just putting a little more effort makes a big difference.” The truth is that living plastic-free is expensive. The grocery stores in San Francisco that Lewis shops at provide compostable bags and zero-waste bulk options at a premium price point. Lewis acknowledges that she is privileged to have the financial and social resources that allow her to live sustainability. Because of this, she understands that plastic-free options aren’t accessible to many students. “[Plastic is] just right in front of you,” Lewis said. “I don’t think it’s the students’ faults themselves, the options presented to them just aren’t good enough.” Besides being plastic-free, Lewis has been a vegetarian since she was in middle school. Unlike Lewis, her family isn’t vegetarian but only eats meat about twice a week, which is more sustainable than most families. However, twice a week is eight times a month, which is 96 more meat-based meals a year than she wishes most people would eat. A lot of people she talks to don’t feel that eating less meat would change anything. “It’s very frustrating because to me, it’s so obvious that all of this is real,” Lewis said. “It’s right in front of you. And do you still not notice it?” Lewis believes that in order for people to change their ways, they need to know the science behind climate pollution. She feels that students need to know about the meat industry’s negative impacts on the environment as a result of the methane production by cattle and the amount of land that is burned or deforested to make room for cattle farms in the Amazon, which adds to the greenhouse effect. “A lot of people don’t realize how much livestock has an impact on our ecosystem,” Lewis said. She thinks that schools should do a better job educating students about how their individual actions can help stop climate change. v

DATA FROM A SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE LOWELL

INFOGRAPHIC BY ANITA LIU

The Lowell October 2019

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SPREAD DESIGN BY KATE GREEN

“I don’t think it’s the students’ faults themselves, the options presented to them just aren’t good enough.”

COVER

Louise Michel

or senior Louise Michel, environmental activism started with construction paper and crayons. At four years old, Michel was greatly concerned by the images she saw of polar bears on melting sea ice in environmental documentaries. When her worries translated into art and posters in elementary school, Michel’s friends found her depictions of environmental woes odd. “I remember them being like, ‘Why do you always write about that?’” Michel said. “It was just something that I cared about so much.” Since elementary school, Michel has continued to express her concern for the environment. These feelings led her to become a vegetarian when she was 11 and an environmental activist last year. Now, she is trying to fully cut out dairy products to go vegan for the environment. Michel’s sustainable living has been largely supported by her family, but she understands that not everyone has the freedom to live sustainably. While she believes that lifestyle changes need to be made, she doesn’t want to force this change upon others. “I had a very easy, privileged time with eating plant-based foods. I know it’s very different and a lot harder for a lot of people,” Michel said. She interned at the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition last year. As an intern, Michel delivered presentations and held events to educate people about factory farming and to empower them to make food choices to benefit the environment, animals, and their own personal health. As a member of the FFAC, Michel found a sense of belonging, as well as purpose and acceptance. “It’s a social thing,” she said. “It’s so good to be around so many people who have the same ideas as you. It really keeps you going. You’re like, ‘Oh right, I can’t give up on these people and they can’t give up on me.’” Having found a supportive community of people leading similar lifestyles, Michel has made it her mission to reduce the social stigma LAUREN CALDWELL surrounding vegetarianism and veganism. For her, a critical step in this cultural change is giving students access to a plant-based meal option in school cafeterias, as she feels that the district needs to give students the ability to choose. “That’s probably one of the biggest positives that [SFUSD] can do — empowering students, like, ‘Hey, you can make this decision. You have this autonomy,’” she said. She thinks that if people weren’t so easily discouraged from changing their practices, the world would look a lot different. “Even if you want to make that change but you can’t, anything still counts and don’t be discouraged because [change] does add up, really quickly,” Michel said. “If everyone who said that they wanted to make a change but they didn’t think that they would actually accomplish anything went and did that change, we would live in a different world.” v

“If everyone who said that they wanted to make a change but they didn’t think that they would actually accomplish anything went and did that change, we would live in a different world.” INFOGRAPHIC BY ANITA LIU

v The Lowell October 2019

Tanya Santos

LAUREN CALDWELL

MELLA BETTAG

The Lowell October 2019

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SPREAD DESIGN BY KATE GREEN

enior co-president of Lowell’s ECO Club, Tanya Santos, has her heart set on making Lowell a more environmentally sustainable community. Santos and members of the ECO Club have worked tirelessly to make it possible for the Lowell community to implement environmentally friendly practices throughout campus and the student body. “We’re looking at sustainability from the main aspects of what humans have been doing on the issue of climate change on this Earth,” she said. In order to tackle the school’s large waste output, ECO Club has started programs like their reusable marker program, which allows teachers to avoid throwing away dozens of single-use Expo markers year after year. Teachers who sign up for this program are provided with a set of whiteboard markers that ECO Club members regularly refill with ink. However, refillable markers aren’t new; a few teachers have been using them on their own for years, but the perceived hassle of refilling them caused many teachers, including biology teacher Mark Wenning, to turn away. Now that an ECO Club member visits Wenning’s classroom every week, he’s fully embraced refillable markers and is grateful for how student efforts have made it easy for him to make small changes in order to benefit the environment. Currently, 52 teachers have signed up for the club’s services, and Santos hopes that the implementation of the program will help reduce plastic waste for years to come. Besides the reusable marker program, ECO Club also holds Eco Swap, a biannual clothing exchange program through which students donate unwanted clothes and trade them in for other people’s donations. The goal of Eco Swap is to increase awareness among Lowellites of the negative effects of fast fashion and to discourage a culture of wearing clothes a few times before donating them. Although people don’t usually directly throw their clothes in the landfill, 85 percent of all clothes in the United States end up in the landfill. Fast fashion is an industry that encourages this rapid consumption of low-cost, trendy clothing at the expense of polluting the environment with toxic chemicals. By encouraging shopping secondhand through Eco Swap, Santos hopes that students will make conscious decisions when buying new clothes. Any unclaimed clothes will still make it out of the landfill, as the organizers of the swap deliver all unclaimed clothes to thredUp, the largest online thrift store in the U.S., where unsold clothes get recycled. Eco Swap is bigger than Lowell. The event has inspired the founding of Needle, a campaign started by high school students at the Urban School of San Francisco to advocate for purchasing used clothing. By offering resources and guidance to individuals across the nation, the campaign aims to spread the notion of Eco Swap to other high schools. Other changes Santos and ECO Club have made center around plastic packaging in the Lowell cafeteria. Last year, under former co-president Kristen Tam, ECO Club was successful in removing prepackaged plastic utensils from school lunches. One of Santos’ long-term goals is to install a dishwasher in the cafeteria so as to completely replace plastic forks with silverware, a system that was successfully implemented at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in 2018, but lacks the necessary funding from the district. Santos believes that the district has the capacity to implement more changes to reduce its ecological footprint, but do not see it as a priority. Santos finds that students at Lowell are becoming more aware of the everthreatening environmental crisis they will be faced with, but she feels that many are too focused on things like school and their individual futures to be taking action. This situation is distressing for Santos, as she believes that if sudents do not act soon, it will already be too late. “But that’s the [problem]—what future will we have if we don’t have our earth anymore?” Santos said. v

FEATURE

Show and Tell “I do think it’s a nice memento to learning new things and taking advantage of the resources you have in a city that’s so awesome.“

“When I get to know something I try to stick with it and see it through, so that defininitely shows how committed I am to both.” Senior Freesia Finn with her welding block.

Senior Emi Steedman with her track and dance shoes.

v The Lowell October 2019

of Lowell

By Lauren Caldwell

“It’s kind of strange how we never really think about who we are until we look at something as small as a little picture.”

“I’ve brought it on every important day, so like the first day of school, a test day, or a finals day. I bring it along as a good luck charm.”

“I started about a year ago because my dad and my sister were already motorcycle riders and they were really encouraging of me.” Junior Tarsa Yuen with his stuffed bird. Freshman Darixa Varela with her self portrait

Senior Alex Buschelman with his motorcycle and helmet.

The Lowell October 2019

SPREAD/PAGE DESIGN BY LAUREN CALDWELL

Freshman Darxia Varela with her self-portrait.

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COLUMN

Small fish, big school By Tess Randall

AMY MARCOPULOS

v The Lowell October 2019

s I arrived at Lowell on the first day of freshman year, I was bombarded by the sight of kids swarming by the flagpole, struggling to get inside. Before I knew it, I too was swept up in the bustle and hastily ushered toward my registry room. Making my way through the unfamiliar halls, I kept getting pushed back by the seemingly growing number of kids. I was so scared of what was to come once we all reached our destinations. C o m i n g to a school like Lowell is pretty intimidating for all freshmen, but when you are arriving from a 60-person middle school, that anxiety is amplified. During middle school, my family moved around a lot because of my mom’s job. As a result, I attended three extremely small schools — the only places I could enroll at on a short notice. Seeing hundreds of kids the moment I stepped foot onto Lowell grounds, it suddenly became painfully clear to me: I was no longer the big fish in a small pond like I used to be. I was a small fish in a pond 50 times my original pond’s size, and it was my job to stay afloat. The first in the string of middle schools I attended was Nicasio School, a K-8 school which had 58 students in total. My grade was actually the largest, with a whopping eight people in it. Nicaso School was a comfortable haven where I knew everyone and everyone knew me. I had been to at least half of my classmates’ houses by the end of the first month. I also carpooled with a friend and his three sisters who all went to our school. This meant I traveled with one fifteenth of the school every day. The situation was similar at the other middle schools I attended. I always got to be the center of attention because new students were uncommon. This made

making friends rather easy since I was hard to miss, being the only new face many of the kids had seen in awhile. Easily distinguishable and well-supported, I found myself calling my fellow classmates friends by the end of a few weeks. When I got my Lowell acceptance letter in eighth grade, I was so excited about going to the “smart kid school” that I locked all my fears of transitioning to a

EDITORIAL

a small middle school just like mine). This showed me that I could still be interesting even if I wasn’t the only new kid, which made me feel very relieved. Though I was still nervous, these budding friendships made me significantly more confident. Later in the day, I even initiated conversations in several classes, which was totally new for me. When starting a new school in the past, relationships were practically handed to me; I never had to be the one to break the ice. The way everyone at Lowell accepted my conversation starters with open arms made me realize I was already on my way to forming a friend group. T h i s breakthrough propelled me to slowly become more comfortable at school. I worked on talking to different people in each of my classes throughout freshman year. Joining clubs also helped me meet like-minded peers. Over time, I learned that at a big school like Lowell, there’s a place and a group for everyone. You just need to search for it yourself. On the first day of sophomore year, I walked into Lowell with a smile on my face and a jump in my step. Walking past the horde of new freshmen reminded me of how much I’d grown since then. Though I still don't know 90 percent of the kids in my class, which is a very stark difference from the small schools I was used to, I know that I can always find someone to talk to if I reach out. v

"I was no longer the big fish in a small pond like I used to be. I was a small fish in a pond 50 times my original pond’s size, and it was my job to stay afloat." large school in a small box in the back of my mind. Far too soon, it was my first day at Lowell, and my repressed anxieties were released all at once. I was scared of being lost in a crowd of half a thousand freshmen, who were each the new kid. How could I stand out and make friends? As I entered my registry, I frantically looked around the crowded room for a seat. Compared to the classrooms I was used to,

the space felt packed and claustrophobic. My hands were shaking as I walked to one of the few tables with an empty seat and timidly asked the girls sitting there if I could join them. To my surprise and delight, they said yes. Soon the three girls and I were walking through the crowd together to the Welcome Back Rally. At the event, we talked about our likes (writing), dislikes (the color orange), and middle schools (one was from

AMY MARCOPULOS

The Lowell October 2019

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SPREAD DESIGN BY KATE GREEN AND ANITA LIU

"I learned that at a big school like Lowell, there’s a place and a group for everyone. You just need to search for it yourself."

NEWS

The scoop on skipping By Io Gilman

t’s 10:59 a.m., a minute before block 4 starts. A student hesitates at the doorway of their next class, weighing the pros and cons of attending. Considering the lengthy lecture ahead of them, grabbing a quick meal from Stonestown or studying for their block 8 test are both tempting alternatives. “I can just get the notes from a friend,” the student reasons to themselves, as they turn on their heel and briskly walk out of the building. Every day, students at Lowell decide to cut class. Despite Lowell’s reputation for being home to a group of serious, responsible students, 39 percent of Lowellites have admitted to violating SFUSD’s attendance policy by skipping class at some point in their high school career, according to a survey of 334 students from three registries in each grade conducted by The Lowell. Studying for a more important class is the most common reason students cut class. This is especially true for upperclassmen who often choose to take on more AP classes than freshmen and sophomores, causing their workload to drastically increase. As a result, the percentage of students that skip class rises 39 percent from 25 percent freshman year to 64 percent junior year. Senior Adam Feng, who took five APs during his junior year, would often cut class in order to complete assignments. “I didn’t [skip class] freshman or sophomore year, because I didn’t have a reason to,” he said. “I wasn’t that stressed, classes weren’t that hard. But definitely junior year was when the pressure started building up.”

“...39 percent of Lowellites have admitted to violating SFUSD’s attendance policy by skipping class at some point in their high school career...” 14

v The Lowell October 2019

CAMERON CHAN On top of academic pressure experienced by students, many participate in multiple extracurriculars and feel too tired to attend class. Class of 2018 alumnus Raymond Huang was a member of Lowell’s cross country team in the fall and track team in the spring, both of which practice for over two hours most weekdays and even on some weekends. This meant that Huang would often get home late and have to stay up late to finish his assignments. As a result, Huang constantly felt sleepdeprived, so he would often skip class to take a nap. “I just couldn’t keep going,” he said. “I needed a break. If I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t cut class.” Some students skip class for mental health reasons. Claire, a senior who has chosen to use a pseudonym, often felt overwhelmed by her heavy workload last school year, causing her to cut class at times when she felt that her mental health was deteriorating. “The trade-off where I skip class is better than being in class and potentially having a panic attack,” she said. Claire feels that when a student’s mental health is at stake, cutting class can be necessary. “The thing with cutting class is you cut class when you need it, not just because you randomly don’t want to go to class,” she said. The temptation to cut class can get worse during senior year, when students feel especially unmotivated to attend class. With three years at Lowell already under his belt and only a few months until graduation, class of 2019 alumnus Henry Lei felt that he needed a break from academics and would often cut class, especially during the second semester of his senior year. “At Lowell, for the first three years everyone is like, ‘Oh, I got to get this A, take this AP class,’” he said. “Senior year, it’s just like, ‘I just want to pass.’ There’s mental fatigue. You’ve been here three years, day in, day out.” Instead of going to class, Lei would spend time with his friends. “During fourth block, sometimes [my friends] would want to get food at Stonestown or just crash an empty classroom and play on their [Nintendo] Switch,” he said. Students are especially unmotivated to attend class when they feel that class is unproductive and new material is not being covered. Lei would often skip Economics and AP Environmental Science when he felt that the teacher was covering material that he had already read in the textbook. “Sitting through a lecture when you can just read the textbook is boring,” he said. In those classes, Lei would only show up if there was an assignment due or a test. Similarly, senior Kush Amarbal often skipped English class during junior year, especially when her teacher was giving one-on-one essay feedback to other students after she had

“The thing with cutting class is you cut class when you need it, not just because you randomly don’t want to go to class.”

already received hers. “I don’t feel the need to go to the class if I have already completed my task in the class,” she said. Even though some Lowellites choose to skip class, other students have never cut. Sophomore Kelsey Ma believes it’s important to attend class every day because teachers might be relaying important information during class. “I don’t want to miss any information that the teacher might give out for tests or miss any homework dates,” she said. Sophomore Jamie Woo doesn’t skip class because she doesn’t want to fall behind. “Missing one day at Lowell is like missing an entire week at any other school,” she said. Regardless of these reasons, many students continue to skip class. For many students, skipping class is only worthwhile when there aren’t serious consequences. According to the SFUSD Student Handbook, cutting class is considered an “unexcused absence.” Typically, students aren’t allowed to make up the work they missed, but teachers may make exceptions and unfinished assignments often do not end up having a significant impact on students’ grades. As a result, this policy is not enough to stop many students from cutting. “I feel like the real punishment you would get with not being in class is just missing an assignment or having your grades slip,” Claire said. “Because I do the work outside of class if I miss it, then I’m not punished.” Though in most classes the punishments for cutting aren’t severe, certain teachers have policies to ensure that their students come to class daily. Amarbal frequently skipped her French class junior year, but her teacher began deducting a point each time she cut, causing her grade to drop considerably. “Once I saw the final [semester] grades, I was like I have to stop,” she said. Amarbal began to attend French class more frequently. However, she continued to skip other classes, like English, where her grades were not suffering. Instead of cutting class, Feng suggests that students explain to their teachers why they feel the need to skip class. “Teachers at Lowell understand how much stress Lowell can offer to a student,” he said. “If you just talk to them heart-to-heart, they should be very forgiving and give you a lot of leeway on things and give you the space and time that you deserve.” Teacher Matthew Bell believes that teachers are willing to work with students who are dealing with issues that make it difficult for them to come to class. “I can’t think of an adult here who doesn’t have the mindset of wanting to make sure that a student has help,” he said.

In addition to not facing consequences for cutting at school, many students are not punished at home. Parents receive phone calls after the first two unexcused absences, and after the third absence, their child is considered a legal truant and a letter is sent home. But being a legal truant does not have larger implications for the student, so many parents don’t do anything to stop their children from cutting. Lei says that his parents often let him decide whether or not to attend class. “My mom told me, ‘If you cut class, that’s on you. If there are consequences, then you will just have to accept them,’” he said. “Fortunately for me, there weren’t any serious consequences, so it was fine.” Other parents, such as Claire’s, don’t mind if their children skip class, as long as they maintain good grades. The fact that some parents don’t punish their child for cutting class upsets Bell. “Why wouldn’t a kid do whatever the heck they think they need to do if they feel like there’s not consequences at home?” he said. However, even when parents do disapprove, it’s not always enough to stop students from skipping. Feng’s parents give him a lecture on the significance of attending class if he skips, and will make sure he doesn’t cut class in the following weeks, but after a while, Feng continues to skip if he thinks it’s necessary for him to complete assignments. It’s now 11:54 a.m., a minute before block 5. The student has to decide if they will go to their block 5 class. They hesitate again. Should they attend and fill out another worksheet that’s just busywork? On the other hand, that block 8 test is still looming on the horizon. “Studying is a better use of my time,” the student says to themselves. They turn around and go to the library. v

Why do you skip class? 80 80

DATA FROM A SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE LOWELL INFOGRAPHIC BY ANITA LIU

SPREAD DESIGN BY ANITA LIU

21 20

4 0

Studying or homework for more important classes

Mental health reasons

Studying or homework for the class I cut

Class is boring

Hunger

There is a subsitute teacher

Physical health reasons

Avoiding a test

Peer pressure

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OPINION

FINISHING THE FIGHT FOR

ETHNIC STUDIES

“O

By Eric Dye and Sarah Liu

n strike! Shut it down!” rings in your ears, chanted by hundreds of San Francisco State University students rallying around you. Protesters are being arrested by the police and tear gas engulfs the figures around you, stinging your eyes and clouding your vision. One police officer punches an African American student square in the face. The year is 1968, and you’re on strike with the Third World Liberation Front and the Black Student Union. Your demand: a class that amplifies the voices of ethnic groups that are often ignored in retellings of American history. Half a century later, the spirit of the strike remains alive in a high school elective course called ethnic studies. The class assists students in developing a newfound understanding and respect for minority groups, many of which have undertaken important roles in our nation’s history, yet continue to be overlooked by a multitude of Americans. Here in San Francisco — the birthplace of the movement — it is time to reaffirm our commitment to diversity and make one semester of ethnic studies a San Francisco Unified School District requirement for high school graduation. Since it was first offered in the 2015-16 school year, Ethnic Studies at Lowell has transformed students’ knowledge of the struggles of minorities through examining different perspectives. This school year, 17 students are enrolled in one block of Ethnic Studies at Lowell, which is taught by history teacher Lauretta Komlos. Komlos aims to make the class a safe place for students to voice their opinions about controversial topics and personalizes lessons to encourage student engagement. Junior Dalya Deuss, who is currently enrolled in Ethnic Studies, recalls an assignment in which students were advised to bring in articles for a class discussion. She chose a video about two Saudi sisters fleeing patriarchal Saudi Arabia, where they faced homophobia, abuse from their father, and the oppressive guardianship system. The video was analyzed in class, causing students to realize and express gratitude for the civil rights enjoyed in America that are usually taken for granted. Deuss also remembers a class conversation about racial identity and how that colors your personal experiences with hardships. “I didn’t really think in depth about race before coming into the Ethnic Studies class,” Deuss said. “When you’re hearing about [the struggles] of someone, it definitely inspires you to do

something about it.” This type of honest dialogue and confrontation of personal experiences between multiracial students is crucial to fostering an attitude of acceptance and appreciation of other cultures that are not your own. Sophomore Samuel Lawrence, who is also a current Ethnic Studies student, believes this is valuable because it gives everyone’s opinions a chance to be heard. Open, respectful dialogue between peers leads to a new understanding of one another, resulting in selfrealization. “It’s important to understand the views of other people,” Lawrence said. “[Ethnic Studies] puts a new light on yourself, [and] it really opens your eyes.” Making Ethnic Studies a graduation requirement would spread these ideas to students who normally wouldn’t have taken the course. Senior Elsie Karlak, who took Ethnic Studies last school year, appreciated the impact of a class project that compared Malcolm X’s and Martin Luther King’s methods of protesting. “It really helped me understand why some consider a more aggressive approach rather than a nonviolent one,” she said. Despite not completely agreeing with either side, Karlak questioned her long-standing opinion on the “right” way to create change as a result of the project. Another senior, Lucas Wylie, who was in Karlak’s class, appreciates the different viewpoints that the class highlights. “At the beginning of the year, there were a lot of partisan arguments that made everyone mad,” Wylie said. “But towards the end of the year, we had a debate [that] was thoughtful and everyone, while still defending their own points of view, listened and considered everyone’s argument.” As Caucasian students in a class that focused on the experiences of minority groups, the course helped both Karlak and Wylie to recognize and comprehend the struggles of those groups — struggles that they

“I didn’t really think in depth about race before coming into the Ethnic Studies class. When you’re hearing about [the struggles] of someone, it definitely inspires you to do something about it.”

v The Lowell October 2019

don’t experience first-hand. It’s no secret that Lowell is not ethnically diverse. 2018-19 Lowell HS Student Demographics During the 2018-19 school year, over 50 percent of Other/Decline to State Lowell students were Asian-American, according to 7.6% data provided by Lowell High School. In contrast, Middle Eastern 0.6% African American, Hispanic, and Filipino students Two or More Races accounted for less than 19 percent of the student 6.1% body. This disparity is staggering, and these groups African American 1.8% lack representation in our student population, which Filipino an Ethnic Studies course would provide. 6.0% Asian However, many argue that the costs of ethnic 50.3% Hispanic studies as a graduation requirement would outweigh 10.4% the benefits. Komlos believes in the importance of the subject but hesitates to make it a graduation requirement because finding teachers would take effort, time, and money. “I feel like the content White should be taught, and should be discussed in some 16.6% way in our public schools. My fear of making it a graduation requirement is that that content will be diluted — it takes a really special teacher to bring DATA COURTESY OF LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL INFOGRAPHIC BY ANITA LIU all these elements [together],” she said. The impact of the class is worth the cost of hiring satisfactory teachers and standardizing the curriculum. The original purpose of the 1968 strikes with the Third World In 2018, former Governor of California Jerry Brown vetoed a bill Liberation Front was to fight for underrepresented voices to be that aimed to make two semesters of ethnic studies necessary for high integrated into our education system, and it’s time to finish what they school graduation. Brown largely justified his decision by noting that started. World History and American Democracy are already SFUSD an additional graduation requirement might cause the workload of graduation requirements; it is time to take a crucial step toward further high schoolers to increase to the point of being unmanageable. Brown’s diversifying our education system by making ethnic studies a graduation reasoning misses the point. Students at Lowell would not be overloaded requirement as well. v with coursework, as the class assigns little homework and would only be required for for one semester. Ms. Komlos speaks to her Ethnic Studies class. JUSTIN YANG

SPREAD DESIGN BY ANITA LIU

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