Pink Support

Attleboro High School students and teachers show their support of the faculty receiving pink slips.

Part 2: Signs of Spring

By: Lydia Robinette and Abbie Strobel

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In the courtyards of Attleboro High School

signs of spring are everywhere

Pretty prink flowers, tulips, and bees buzzing through the air.

In the greenhouses of Attleboro High School

mother-nature is doing her job

The buds are blooming, the green is emerging, and butterflies dip and bob

In the gardens of Attleboro High School

the season’s change is obvious

Leaves rustle in the breeze, dandelion fluff drifts through the sky, and the bursts of color and life are glorious.

Clash – For the Royal

Welcome to the Royal Clash Photo by: Jade Ford

By: Jade Ford

On Jan. 4, 2016, Clash Royale was released in the app store. The game is closely related to Clash of Clans; however Royale is based more on multiplayer battling. Instead of having a town hall, like in Clash of Clans, the player is a King and must battle in the arenas earning trophies and gaining chests and fighter cards.

Each player in the battle arena has a King tower and two Princess towers. The Princess towers are archers and shoot enemies but only do a certain amount of damage according to the player’s level.

The King’s tower has more hit points and does slightly more damage than the Princess’s towers because they use a canon and that is where special cards like the fireball and arrows are projected from.

The cards found within the chests earned from successful battles contain coins and cards with different types of fighters on them, like archers, giants, dragons, or even skeletons. Each player has an elixir bar, which is a potion that is used to send out the fighter cards; these can be troops, spells, or buildings.

Elixir is used up fairly quickly due to the fighter cards ranging from 1-5 in elixir cost. The elixir bar regenerates slowly but players can obtain elixir cards which help them regenerate more elixir at a faster pace.

During the last 60 seconds of each battle, each player’s elixir bar goes slightly faster making it a little easier to send out troops and destroy the enemies’ towers. The person who has destroyed all three towers first, or the most towers before time runs out, is the winner and earns a certain amount of trophies and a chest; the chests can carry any amount of cards, coins, and/or gems depending on the player’s win.

Players can level up by upgrading their fighter cards when they receive the amount required to upgrade from chests they have earned. Different amounts of trophies unlock new arenas for the player to fight in. Each arena is where players will find other players within the same level range as themselves to battle.

Clash Royale is free in the Apple app store, but there are some features which players have to pay money to receive. If a player is low on gems or coins they can pay money from their Apple account to buy more gems or coins. The gems can be used to open chests faster or buy epic player cards if they don’t have enough coins to buy them.

Just like Clash of Clans, this app has become very popular and is currently the editor’s choice in the app store with over 37,000 reviews. Rated a 9+ for cartoon and fantasy violence, it is sold by Supercell Oy but requires iOS 7.0 or later.

Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the game deserves five out of five stars for excellent graphics and a very competitive, yet fun, vibe.

Attleboro Scholarship Foundation Visits AHS

Attleboro Scholarship Foundation Header Photo by: ASF site

 

By: Jade Ford

Over the last 10 years, the Attleboro Scholarship Foundation (ASF) members have visited Attleboro High School (AHS) and provided seniors with opportunities to receive scholarships from families and other foundations who have partnered with ASF to award money.

ASF Executive Director Mrs. Wendy Holt visited AHS recently to answer students’ questions about certain scholarships and loan opportunities that aren’t offered just at AHS. She also visits periodically during the months leading up to the scholarship and college application times refilling all house office’s application bins.

“When I visit, I usually have a partner with me and she will sit here [at a table set up in B2 cafeteria] and I will go around to the tables making sure all the seniors have all the papers they need,” said Holt.

Students can reach Holt at (508) 226-4414 or visit ASF at 89 North Main St. with any questions regarding applications or the loan program.

“Students can come in with any questions or make one-on-one appointments; anything that we can help with we are more than happy to do,” said Holt.

Another very important resource for the students within AHS is secretary Mrs. Carolyn Bosh, who is available on the balcony for students who have any questions.

At ASF, it is not just as simple as picking the most qualified student or the student who needs it the most; there is a selected group of ASF members who pick students for the scholarships. ASF first helped out with student loans in 1947, but then branched out into offering scholarships for college.

The scholarships offered do not entirely revolve around good grades like most students might think. They are more often based on which school the student wants to attend and the student’s community service hours. Others have more specific requirements.

The main application that all guidance counselors encourage students to apply for is the general application, which qualifies students for many other scholarships. “Outside organizations that aren’t partnered with us or the high school may find and pick students to give scholarships and money to who they feel will do the most with the money they’re given,” said Holt.

The loan program is up to a $15,000 loan, which adds to whatever financial aid the student is receiving. The program also depends on the student’s chosen college. There are also many technology scholarships as well for students who wish to go into a technical career.

ASF tries their best to spread the word about how they can help and what they can offer to students. “We put notices in the newspaper, we’re even on cable television too; we are always doing our best to get the information out there,” said Holt.

Seniors can apply to as many scholarships as they want and receive several scholarships. “We try our best to spread out the money to everyone as much as we possibly can because we don’t want to give all of the money to one student who has a bunch of qualifications and average grades and none to a student who has less qualifications and better grades,” said Holt.

The L.G. Balfour Foundation has partnered with ASF and administers the Balfour money; however, it is not advertised like the rest of their scholarships. “After Mr. Balfour passed, he said in his will that he wanted to take care of all his former workers’ [at the Balfour Jewelry factory] grandchildren with their education, so any child who has a grandparent that worked there can apply to receive money from that foundation, but we don’t advertise that as much as the others,” said Holt.

Students can find the full list of scholarships offered by ASF on their website as well as the loan program offered.

Unwind

A well loved copy of Unwind Photo by: Lydia Robinette

 

By: Lydia Robinette

Unwind by Neil Shusterman is a novel set in a dystopian future where aborting a pregnancy has become illegal, however, between the ages of 13 and 18 parents can “retroactively abort” their child through the process of “unwinding.”

Unwinding is the phrase used in the book as a euphemism for sending the teenagers to “harvest camps” where they are used medically as full body donors, meaning they use the victims’ entire body as viable organs for other people. The policy started as a way to help burn victims and other people who suffered and needed body parts to be saved but it soon became a staple of society. Due to the surplus in parts from the many unwound teenagers, people with thinning hair could request a scalp implant or people who didn’t like their eye color could replace them.

The novel follows three teenagers, Conner, Risa and Lev, and their journey evading their upcoming unwinding. Conner, a troubled fifteen year old, was being unwound because his parents decided it would be better for him than letting him continue with his shenanigans.

Risa, a fifteen year old state ward, was sent to unwinding because she was one of the many children who were sent to orphanages because nobody wanted to take care of them and she did not do anything that proved her worthy enough to let her live in “an undivided state.”

Lastly, Lev, a thirteen year old, was sent to be unwound because his parent’s religion calls for a tithe (a term that in this case means unwinding your child on their thirteenth birthday as a holy sacrifice to God). He was taught his whole life that he was special and created only for this purpose.

Shusterman came up with the idea for writing Unwind because he was watching a television show that talked about transplants and their future possibilities, which made him think about “if one hundred percent of a person is still alive, are they alive or dead?” Shusterman has another series that deals with life and death questions The Everlost Trilogy.

Unwind has sold over 350,000 copies today and is an amazing dystopian novel, like no other, because it doesn’t revolve around  new technology, but instead brought up possible solutions for today’s leading arguments. It made readers ponder the difference between life and death and the things that make being alive worthwhile. It was exceptional and could potentially change the way people look at life. This novel deserves five out of five stars.

Scholarships

Scholarship Applications List-Photo by: Jade Ford

By: Jade Ford

Between Jan. and April, seniors schedule multiple appointments with their guidance counselors to apply for scholarships.

“Students begin applying for scholarships around Jan., some applications are due on April 1, but some students wait to see what packages they can receive and what kind of aid is available to them,” said House 3 guidance counselor Ms. Leslie Hackbarth.

Students never have to worry about paying to apply for scholarships, since it is free to seniors and some juniors who want a head start. Some scholarships do have specific requirements for the students to complete.

“Each scholarship receives a lot of applicants and the money is tied to certain requirements, although the requirements are pretty reasonable,” said House 2 guidance counselor Ms. Kelsey Brindley.

The house offices of Attleboro High School (AHS) provide a lot of help when it comes to ensuring a fair opportunity to receive help to make it into college. “The house office handles everything and the students just have to apply and get all their requirements done. Other students who aren’t in AHS, but still in the Attleboro community, can also receive money from us if they have better requirements than those here who have applied,” said House 1 guidance counselor Mr. William Stiles.

Scholarship requirements are very diverse, ranging from community service hours, to athletics, or even family members in a specific work force. There are a few scholarships available to anyone, for students who do not meet specific requirements for certain scholarships.

“School within a School (SWS) students can absolutely apply; anyone part of the Attleboro community can apply for these scholarships.” said Stiles.

AHS does its best to spread the word to all the seniors about scholarship season. “Our guidance department does an excellent job of publicizing scholarship opportunities through social media and through our outlets at the school such as Daily Notices and through bulletin board postings,” said AHS Principal Mr. Bill Runey.

Keeping students updated and providing times at which they can meet with their guidance counselors helps the stress level remain low when it comes to applying to colleges and seeking the help many students need today.

The newest scholarship, not shown on the list of available scholarships and each of their requirements, is the BCEA $1000 Carlos Alves Scholarship, which was added this year. This is a typical scholarship for AHS; the highest scholarship is $5000 and the lowest is around $250.

“There’s a link on the school website that shows you all the scholarships and there’s also the Scholarship Foundation site which has everything there too,” said Brindley.

All the information regarding which scholarships offer the most and which offer the least is available on the Attleboro Scholarship Foundation (ASF) site. On Feb. 24, 2016, ASF members will talk to seniors in B2 cafeteria during all lunches about the scholarships.

Students can also check the Balcony for applications. “Aside from requirements and special preferences, these applications adhere to their deadlines,” said Guidance Director Mrs. Julie Little. The site includes requirements for each scholarship.

 

Final Artwork

By: Jade Ford

Expression comes in many forms, whether its dance, singing or exercising. For many students at Attleboro High School (AHS) their expression is in the form of art. The following are examples of the last trimester’s works of art.

 

Sophomore Alexandra Pierce

“There were plants set out on the table and we got to choose which one to draw and I chose all of them because nature is beautiful.”

Sophomore Misty Harlow

“There will be ones that will eat the fish, and there will be ones that will save the fish.”

Sophomore Justin Torres

“Basically the skeleton’s soul is leaving its body and all its memories and feelings go into the ground and grow into a tree. The tree is representing its new life basically.”

Sophomore Zoe Boldt

“I chose elephants because they’re my favorite animal and I love them so I decided to make a little baby elephant and a mother elephant.”

Sophomore Jada Fisher

“We had to pick specific plants and draw them individually and then transfer them over to a larger paper and group them all together. We painted it and obviously I had to include some greens, and I did. However, I added some colors that don’t seem natural to plants because too much green is far too boring. For the background I did a sunrise with soft blues and pinks. I think my art reflects who I am and I’m really proud of it.”

Women against Feminism

By: Grace Harvey

 In America feminist movements are becoming more centered on “smaller” rights. Women have already achieved the right to vote, there are laws against rape, and laws for equal pay are slowly developing. In countries like India, Egypt and much of the Middle East, the women are still struggling to just be acknowledged as people.

Blog sites, especially Tumblr, discuss multiple angles of feminism. If someone were to type “feminism” into the search bar, the first blog that comes up on Tumblr is “Women Against Feminism,” a blog dedicated completely to pictures of women holding up signs that say why they do not need feminism. Many of these signs repeat the same basic idea that the women are strong enough to stand up for themselves and that feminists just want to be given more rights than men.

Posts on that blog show an obvious trend; the majority of the women are white females, and just about every single one of them is American.

While these women may feel empowered by proudly stating that “they don’t need feminism,” they are being selfish. They are thinking about themselves only, and completely ignoring the women out of America that still are blamed for being raped.

Saying that you are a woman and that you are “against feminism” is saying that as a woman, she feels as if she has no need to be equal to men. Though America seems like less of a patriarchy nowadays, the average woman still only makes 76 cents to the average male dollar.

There was a video released on YouTube by an Indian female YouTuber, where she went around to many men asking them if they would marry a girl who was raped; all but two men said that no, they would not marry a girl who was raped.

“No, absolutely not,” one man said, continuing, “she is impure; my son must marry a girl who is pure. He is pure, so she must be too.”

Rape in India is still seen as a woman’s fault, and there are no laws currently in place to try and change that.

In the Middle East, women are barely even seen as human. They are forced into arranged marriages at a young age to men who can be over twice their age, and then are expected to bear children and stay at home at all times. Women cannot vote, apply for jobs and are not treated even remotely equal to men.

There are also still rights that American women have not received, and women of color are struggling for not only women’s rights, but with racism in America. Feminism is the idea that women are people too and should be equal to men, not higher.

So these women holding up signs smugly telling the world that feminism is a hate group to bring women higher than men are selfish. They may have all the rights in their privileged first world country that makes them comfortable, but there are still women being sold into sex slavery, mutilated and raped constantly in countries that aren’t so lucky as America.

Women should be grateful for the freedom women have in first world countries, but that does not make it okay to say that the feminist fight is done and no longer needed. Just because some American women feel they received all that they wanted, does not mean that the rest of the world did.

The feminist movement will not stop until women everywhere have the same basic human rights, and the fight definitely will not be halted by privileged white women holding up posters claiming that they don’t “need feminism.” They might not feel as if they do, but the women in India, the women in Egypt, and the women in Africa who are raped and killed every day just because of their gender, they do; they need feminism.

Students Against Standardized Testing

By: Samantha Lamar

Students all over the country take different forms of standardized testing to measure the content they’ve learned in school. In Mass., students take the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), as it has been around for 20 years. Students as young as third grade begin to take MCAS and it follows them all the way up through their sophomore year of high school.

Standardized testing should be taken out of schools all over the country because all it does is stress students out more. They work all year to maintain good grades in difficult courses and in some cases, many students fail. Standardized tests just add weight to the sky already atop students’ shoulders.

Teachers teach according to what students will be tested on, not what they really should know. In English courses, students constantly write essays and open responses to prepare them for the sheer amount of writing they will have to complete for MCAS.

Testing also interrupts the daily learning routine of students. When it’s time for students to take the MCAS, they sit in the same room for up to three hours to take the test. Their other classes are shortened and sometimes even eliminated from their schedule.

Many students feel that the tests are oppressive and unfair. The tests don’t correctly test the knowledge students have acquired in school. All they test is a student’s ability to sit and answer multiple choice questions and how well a structured essay can be written.

Content learned cannot be tested by simply sitting in a room and selecting one of four answers. Even if a student guesses, they have a 25 percent chance of being correct on multiple choice questions. Some students are better at deducting and making educated guesses than others, which gives them an advantage.

Some students also suffer from test anxiety, which causes them to panic and not do well on formal tests. They could be an A student in the classroom, but when MCAS rolls around they receive a “Needs Improvement” score.

Standardized testing should be removed from schools because it’s not an accurate measurement of what a student knows or how well a teacher teaches. It forces teachers to go over structured material and spend months of classroom time preparing students for the test.

Students are already worried about grades and have many other stressors in their daily lives. Standardized tests just add to the mix, putting unnecessary pressure on both students and teachers to do well.

There are other ways of testing the knowledge of students and how well a teacher is teaching such as observing the classroom. They can also look at students’ grades in the classroom to measure how well they’re doing in a more comfortable and diverse environment.

Standardized testing is wrong and oppressive. It takes the fun out of coming to school and learning new things. It forces students to memorize content and strategies to play the cards in their favor. It doesn’t actually test important skills other than memorization and the ability to follow instructions.

Testing is not a measure of worth. Many students who do well in the classroom setting freeze up and forget everything when it’s time to take a test. To bring the fun in learning and education back into public schools, standardized testing has to go.

Where Does the Money go in Attleboro Public Schools?

By: Sarah Deyo

Every year the Attleboro School Committee presents the mayor of Attleboro with the amount of money they believe the school needs. Last year, Attleboro Public Schools were very fortunate to receive money from both the city and other organizations that gave/donated money.

 With the money received instead of using it to make sure that the schools had the technology and materials needed to teach classes appropriately, the city decided to build a new stadium outside Attleboro High School (AHS). Even though the stadium is great, the city needs to be thinking about their schools and not how great the new stadium makes the city as a whole look.

Inside of most of the schools, air conditioners do not work and when maintenance eventually gets around to fixing them the school year is already over. Forcing teachers and students to have to use fans to stay cool is a distraction to teachers and students because of the noise they make. With the money received, maybe the academic priorities of the school system should be the focus.

School within a School (SWS) has been a program at AHS to help students who need extra help/guidance to complete high school. The program was a grant for three years and this year the grant is ending. When the school committee requested more money to make sure AHS could keep the program, the budget was cut by the mayor, making the funding for a program like SWS not possible, but we again we had the money to build a new stadium.

The technology at the public schools is out of date and needs to be updated. Many teachers in the high school level rely on smart phone technology to access the internet in class. Not only are the computers out dated, but the classrooms in the high school are mostly chalkboards, and if a class has a whiteboard it is just screwed in over a chalkboard. Overheads are the old fashion type, which only works if a work sheet is laminated.

The school doesn’t need to be at the top of the charts with technology, but it needs to update what we have. Instead of older overheads maybe the school could buy Elmos or something that displays color. Maybe the school could install quicker Wi-Fi so students can use their phones in class. Maybe the schools could even update their air conditioners so they actually work when they’re needed.

The city of Attleboro needs to look at where the money is going and understand that not only the schools benefit, but the students do also. It is time that Attleboro School children have up-to-date technology and it is time that the students receive the education they need to succeed.