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November 29, 2011
Alex Rich
In 2010, the district created a committee to gather feedback on the updated homework policy. The committee released a report of their findings at the Oct. 26 FUSD Board of Education Meeting.
The purpose of the committee was to give an update on how the homework policy was affecting students, teachers, and parents.
“We were told that the board was not interested in changing the policy,” world language teacher Jennifer Pardini said. “So that any suggestions we made would likely not result in any changes by the board.”
Pardini is one of the two WHS teachers on the committee, along with English teacher Sharon Jones.
Teachers have expressed concerns about the policy since it went into effect during the 2010-2011 school year.
“I had to cut out an entire book,” Jones said, referring to Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Pardini is not happy with the way the board is handling the policy. She argues they don’t know how their own policy works and are unwilling to act in the best interest of students by not realistically preparing them for their future in college.
“The committee was a waste of time for many teachers since our professional opinions [were] often disregarded by the board,” she said.
Ivy Wu, clerk on the board, maintains that the committee was only intended for the public’s general information.
“Since it was for information only, there was no action taken by the Board,” Wu said.
After analyzing data from parent, teacher, and student surveys, the committee published that an average of 22 percent of students not enrolled in AP or Honors classes felt they experienced a decline in the amount of work assigned, while 41 percent AP or Honors felt they experienced a decline or no change.
A total of 60 percent of parents are under the impression that their children go to school with all their homework completed, while only 40 percent of Honors and AP students say they do all their homework on a regular basis, and only 22 percent of college and non-college-prep students.
However, a majority of students and parents agree that completing homework is an essential part of academic success and that the level of the difficulty of current homework is appropriate.
“The homework policy didn’t change much,” senior Kevin Ou said. “They might as well go back to the way it was.”
The committee also found that 3 percent of college prep students feel they are not academically stressed, and 61 percent of teachers could not complete the required textbook or readings within the policy’s guidelines.
“[The policy] does not take into consideration that our students take very different workloads,” Jones said. “It’s one size fits all.”
This article originally appeared in the print edition on November 29, 2011.
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October 4, 2011
Alex Rich
School Resource Officer (SRO) Robyn Berlin, along with the administration, held assemblies about enforcing the dress code and electronic policies on Sept. 9 through 14.
The assemblies were age specific, with one day per class and mostly involved Berlin and Assistant Principal Lance Miller informing students about punishable offenses. Since it’s Berlin’s second year at WHS, she felt she needed to do something this year to get studentsmore aware of consequences.
The school board recommended consequences, as stated in the husky planner, ranges from a dress change to expulsion, including a
possible referral to the SRO.
“There’s no new enforcement,” Miller said. “We just took the time to explain the rules.”
Among the rules the assembly addressed was the school dress code. According to Campus Supervisor Kathy Fetz, in recent years since dress code rules
prevented wearing hats or the colors red and blue, fights on campus have dropped significantly.
“It’s good to have rules, and it’s good to enforce them. It keeps things running smooth,” Fetz said.
Berlin mentioned during the assemblies that blue or red shoelaces are violations of the dress code policy, as well as the rule that hats are not to be worn inside of class, but may be worn outside of class as long as they are school colors. To some, these rules aren’t as important.
“If a kid is doing well in my class, I don’t see why I need to bug him or her about a hat,” Teri Hu, a teacher in the English Department, said.
Dress code has always been a large source of debate at WHS, both among staff and students.
“It keeps things orderly, and it keeps students focused on school,” government and economics teacher Mike Soltau said. “Hats in class are just disrespectful.”
Though the dress code policy was the main idea of the assemblies, the electronics policy will also be enforced in the same manner. If electronics are not surrendered to a teacher, students may be arrested, Berlin stated at the assemblies. The administration hopes raising awareness will prevent future violations.
This article originally appeared in the print edition of the Hatchet on October 4, 2011.
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November 11, 2009
Simrundeep Kaur
You wake up in the morning and check your phone for text messages and voice mails. Then maybe you turn on the computer to glance at your Facebook and e-mail. After school you’ll probably find yourself in front of a TV or a computer. As you grudgingly begin your homework, you hook up your headphones into your iPod and amp up the volume.
Addicted much? Technology may be a necessity, but it is also distracting. We have become so dependent on it that we were bound to become addicted.
This addiction has fed society’s desire for constant advancement. Every few months, innovators release something new, something everyone wants and something everyone thinks they need.
Take the iPod for example. Ever since its initial release in 2001, the device has undergone numerous makeovers. There are now 23 different versions of the various models: “classic”, “mini”, “nano”, “shuffle” and “touch”. Now, after only a short amount of time, Apple has even developed the iPod Touch and the iPhone with a heat-sensitive screen. People can easily access the Internet from these two devices, as well as thousands of available applications.
The snail-mail days are almost nonexistent now. With e-mails and text messages, who needs letters? We can relay a message to someone in the blink of an eye. When snail mail was the primary form of communication, it would take at least three days for someone to receive a letter. Now it is rare to get a card or letter from a loved one.
In addition, computers have gotten progressively thinner and smaller. Macintosh’s elementary days are long gone. Now we have come to enjoy things like the Mac Book Pro. Better yet, everything on a computer can now be found on cell phones, which are even smaller than even today’s computers. It makes one wonder what will be invented next.
How many teachers still use overhead projectors for everyday lessons? We have ceiling projectors that connect directly to computers.
Map books, too, have undergone a change. No one consults them anymore. Everything is online: the map, the estimated travel distance, the estimated time of travel and even shortcuts.
Anything and everything can be found on a computer now; the Internet is a beautiful thing.
Nonetheless, the addiction remains, and grows stronger as each day goes by. How bad will it get? A day without any technology would be an interesting one indeed.
