By: Gianni Gineri and Madison Dominguez, School Reporters

May 4th, 2023

32ND ST. USC MAE - Read to find out our school’s opinions on this social issue: mass shootings.

Over the years, a major social issue has developed here in the U.S and that major social issue is mass shootings. People are getting killed and injured and this has become somewhat “normal” or what others say is “an American thing”. There have been shootings almost everywhere, schools, malls, churches, parks, homes, etc. These have become big subjects on the news and it doesn’t seem to stop. There have been protests and campaigns to spread social media awareness but nothing seems to change or nobody tries to do something about it. This could happen anytime and anywhere unfortunately. But how has our school staff prepared for these kinds of situations? We decided it's best that we interview our hard-working staff here in our school and see what they’re opinions are on this social issue. 

We decided to interview our wonderful teacher, Ms. Elshabba. We chose to interview her because we knew she would have the most thoughtful answers. We asked her whether she thinks students take this social issue seriously or not. She responded with, “I think most students…really do fear it happening and I think even though their attitude might not show that, you know they laugh about it, joke about it, which I hate when they make jokes about it…”. She also stated that the reason she thinks students think this way is because she thinks this issue is so desensitized because they (students) see it all the time on the news and on tv that it hasn’t become a rare occurrence anymore; because it’s so normalized now. We also informed her that some students don’t take much concern about it and some seem to worry about it constantly. With that leading to our next question for her, if she was a student, would she be one who would constantly worry about this situation happening or would she be one who would try not to worry about it. Her answer was, “I think I’d be scared constantly and probably be paying attention to others around me…”. 

We also decided to ask her if she thinks that students are mentally prepared if a situation like this were to happen. She answered with, “No, I think it would really take a hold on them mentally, any student who goes through that, it's terrifying…” We think this was a very strong response to this question because most people would agree with it. We asked her why she thinks her or the students are or aren’t prepared if anyone were to open fire. Her answer was, “Well here’s the thing, it depends on who the shooter is… if it was a student or someone from this school, the problem is that the person would know the ins and outs; so I don’t see how you could be prepared… they can easily hurt others and myself… I’ve thought a lot about this…” From what she said, it seems like this social issue has gotten so bad, to the point where teachers and others are worried so much about it that they start thinking at random times of places to hide or go in case something like this happens. She also mentioned that two of her English class students wrote narratives about the big shooting that happened in Las Vegas. She also addressed how she thinks that there isn’t enough being done and that there’s no change to try and minimize this issue.

We also decided to interview our beloved Mr. Coleman, his responses were very moving. We asked Mr. Coleman what he thought about school shootings becoming more of a problem in our country, he responded with, “It’s tragic, it's a statement about mental health issues, social issues that need to be addressed. I know there is a lot of issues about gun control but mental health should also be thought about because the person most recently in Tennessee had extreme mental health issues and he was depressed; maybe if there was more services available it might have lead to a different outcome but that's one of the things to be looked at, there is other issues but that is the major thing.” Which is believed to be true because evidence shows that mass shootings are usually caused by lack of gun control and mental illnesses. We also asked Mr. Coleman why he thought students are or are not prepared if anyone were to open fire. He responded with, “We think that a lot of things are going about where we live. This is an outside school like the school is a sanctuary, but that sanctuary has eroded and is no longer a sanctuary but still we hold on to that belief that a lot of things will happen outside of the school but not inside the school, that is something even I look at every morning when I stand out in the blacktop doing some vision. I look at all the buildings around us because there is always that chance of something happening right there.” Which is very comforting knowing that someone is out on the lookout seeing what is going on so we won't get harmed. We also asked Mr. Coleman in what way HE is prepared for this kind of situation. He said, “I’m not really prepared, but I know in the position that if something happens it could lead to me having to sacrifice my life to make sure the students stay safe on campus, and that is something that you may say ‘am I willing to do this or will I do it?’ but for where we are, you just may have to do that.” Which is something that a lot of people find comforting and heroic knowing that someone will be brave enough willing to risk their own lives for students. So a big thanks to Mr. Coleman for being brave enough to willingly risk his own life for us.

We would like to thank both our interviewees for expressing their opinions on this topic. It was very much appreciated! To wrap this up, we just want to say that mental health matters and if you know someone who is having trouble keeping a right mind or shows signs of not being well, please try and help. Any help works, big or small, even a compliment can make someone’s whole day. Always be aware of your surroundings and the people around you. Keep calm and don’t try to stress, if you do, do things that would help you calm down whether it’s listening to music or going for a walk. We also think that teachers and staff should have at least basic training on this incase anything happens because you never know. The world can be a scary place. We also want to honor all the kids, teachers, and staff who have passed away in any school shooting across the country, you will be missed.

By: Vanessa Gamez, Global News Reporter

March 6th, 2023

IRAN- On March 4, 2023 there was an article published on CNN, by Reuters and Heather Chen. The article was regarding how school girls were being poisoned in Iran. He explained there were many school girls who got sick from possible food poisoning. As well as parents who were mad and protesting trying to get justice for their daughters. Many have expressed their opinion on this situation.

The Iranian officials stated it could be an attack from the hardline Islamist groups against education for girls. Since then, there have been lots of suspicious evidence that can lead to who started this nightmare for these girls. It has been published that there have been over 30 schools which were affected by this poison.  As well as videos published where there are girls being transported onto an ambulance coming out of school.

Besides parents being furious over this poisoning. There has also been an opinion from Iran's supreme leader. He stated if the suspects are proven to be culprits in this case they should be sentenced to death for committing an “unforgivable crime.” Another statement made in regards to this was by Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli. The minister stated, “In field studies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being investigated… to identify the causes of the students’ illness, and the results will be published as soon as possible,”. I think he is trying to keep people as calm as possible and show people they are keeping this case as a priority.

In my opinion, I do think it was the Islamist extremist group against education for girls because they have done a lot of atrocious things towards women and girls. Violence against women has occured due to women "miswearing" their hijabs. There have been many protests against this and trying to stop things like this from happening. Which is why I think this was another case by the same people who are trying to keep women isolated and “controlled.”

In conclusion, I think Iran's leader had every right to say whoever was responsible for this, deserved death. Although there have been many attacks on women,going for school girls who just want to learn is a horrible thing to do. Especially when the attacks went for over 30 schools. But I am glad the Iranian police have taken action and have arrested over 100 people who have been connected to this case recently.

By: Gianni Gineri and Madison Dominguez, Opinion Piece

November 17th, 2022

32nd St. USC MAE- Kanye West is in a downward spiral right now and the public is being influenced by his comments. To fill you in on what’s happening, Kanye West is seemingly unstable and has made some pretty negative comments and actions. Such as tweeting he was going “Death Con 3” on Jewish people before alleging that he wasn’t anti-Semitic because black people are actually Jewish. This all started around the time that his now ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, the mother of his 4 kids, filed to divorce against him. This deeply affected his mental health and lead him down some obsessive tangents, even leading him to make racist comments/actions towards his own race. Kanye has been seen wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt out in public. We were deeply disturbed and confused by these actions and so we decided it’d be a great idea to see what staff in our school thought about this topic.

To start off, we interviewed Principal Kehrley. We asked him about his thoughts on Kanye West as both a celebrity and a person. He answered that he is or was a well-respected artist and that he was disappointed to hear and read about his racial stereo-typing, he then followed up saying, “I feel like there's many people who have gotten to where they are at least to some percentage by saying things that are intentionally off-putting and controversial and he definitely fits into that category.” We also questioned him on what he thinks Kanye West should do to regain his good reputation after all he has done in which he replied “Until today he hasn’t provided an apology…so an apology would probably be a good first step.” We then reminded him that his divorce with Kim Kardashian affected his mental health which we followed up by asking him if he thinks that this justifies the way Kanye has acted. Mr. Kehrley then replied, “No, there’s no justification for that type of thing”.

As this is an interesting topic to discuss, we decided it’d be a good idea to interview the fabulous Ms. Craig, the high school counselor. We repeated the question of “What is your opinion on Kanye West as both a celebrity and a person?”. She responded with “...as a celebrity he definitely has a lot of influence on people…as a person he has been very controversial for a long time up to the point where he started making these anti-Semitic remarks…” We then decided to ask what she thinks of Kanye’s actions and opinions in which she answered that he is definitely calling for help with his comments and that he has a lot that he has to unpack. She used the death of Kanye’s mother as an example in which she said he probably didn’t grieve it properly to get through that especially since he has always been in the public eye. Ms. Craig also stated that all of this has affected his mental health and that he is using this public forum to speak out against it but in a very awkward and crazy way. We also wanted to know what she thought about companies who have terminated their contracts with him. She responded with “...they love you when you’re doing right but as soon as you do something wrong, they turn on you...they snatch that money away...and they have a right because they have a bigger responsibility to the people at large…” Our next question for her was what she thinks Kanye could do to regain his good reputation. She replied by saying that this was going to stain him for a while but he will get past this. There have been many celebrities who have been through all kinds of stuff and they’ve been put to shame but at the end of the day we’re all human and we eventually forgive them. Lastly, we asked her if his divorce with Kim Kardashian which affected his mental health, justifies the way Kanye has acted. She said, “No, millions of people have gotten divorced and they do not act like this…”

We also interviewed former 6th grade history teacher Mr. Ortega. We asked the same questions we did before but some of his responses really caught our attention. For example, we asked “What are your thoughts on Kanye West’s actions and opinions?”, he responded with “...his actions and opinions like I said, he should not say what he said if that is really how he feels, keep it to yourself, educate yourself there is no need to put other groups down and say anything negative”. We really appreciated this response and find a lot of truth to it. We also asked Mr. Ortega, “What do you think Kanye can do to regain a good reputation after what he has done?”. His response was, “I think he needs to do a lot of charity work and a lot of action. He can say all the apologies that he wants but ultimately it is what he does that are his actions; I think actions speak louder than words”. We believe this was also a great response because we agree that actions do speak louder than words.

Lastly, we interviewed Mr. Castillo, a great staff member you see out in the yard helping out. We asked for his thoughts and opinions and here is what he responded with. We asked him, “What are your thoughts on what Kanye West said about the Jewish people?'', he responded with “I think that's extremely concerning, there is a lot of people who are artists like Kanye West, his fan base is huge and the problem with that is you got a lot of followers and some people don't really do there research themselves…he was saying it somewhat brainwashing and that’s super dangerous because it affects so many people”. We agree with his opinion because what big time celebrities say can affect other people and it could be very dangerous. We also asked what he thinks about the companies that terminated their contract with Kanye West?”, his response was “I think that’s the first right step in doing so, he was losing a lot of sponsorships and a lot of deals and I think that's warranted just because in business…you work with a lot of people with different ethnicities, different backgrounds and to support someone like that, to still be in business with someone like that it says a lot about the company and I don't think that’s where they want to go moving forward”. We definitely agree with this because companies get affected by what type of sponsor you associate with and what they say/do can have lasting impacts.

By: Samantha Ochoa, School News Reporter 

November 17th, 2022

LOS ANGELES - Do you dislike the new daily  school schedule? Does the new schedule let you sleep longer? Well, the government thought they were doing us a favor by pushing back the school starting time. Their reason for this is “Teenagers could get more sleep.” In reality, most of us are getting less sleep or even the same amount of sleep! Although, I do understand that sleep deprivation is a real thing and is also essential for us to live longer, this new schedule is not beneficial to students. 

If you are a student that does extracurriculars, then you probably dislike the new schedule.  You probably feel overwhelmed with everything. Not only that, you can’t forget about homework! Even if you don’t do extracurriculars, you can still feel overwhelmed. For us, we get out at 3:30pm. From there we have to get home, do homework, eat, shower, etc. We used to get out at 2:45 and while it may not seem like it, those 45 minutes truly make a difference, especially when you factor in LA traffic.

There are multiple issues pertaining to the current school schedule. Camila Sharp, one of my fellow peers, had this to say on the matter, “I do not like it because it’s inconsiderate to students and their family schedules. It's inconvenient for students whose parents have to go to work early.” When parents have to work early, they have to drop their kids off earlier than usual. Some kids have to wait a whole hour before class actually starts. Even though their kids’ schedule has changed, that doesn’t mean theirs did as well. The worst part about waiting around in the morning is when there are bad weather conditions, you have to deal with it.

Another person that agrees with Camilla is Joselyn Galindo. She says, “I don’t like the schedule because the day feels longer.” She also agrees with Camilla about the disregard the district has about people’s schedules. She also said that she gets the same amount of sleep as she did when school began earlier. Joselyn says “It’s pointless for them to have pushed the time back if most of us are getting the same amount of sleep.” As you can see here these two girls have the same opinion. They also have somewhat the same reasons. 

This schedule not only affects students but also it affects our parents. As I have mentioned before, some parents need to go to work early. There are lots of people in this school that agree with the new schedule being futile. The government really should’ve thought this through. I know that they were just trying to do something nice for us and our health, but this has proven unsuccessful. I wonder if they really considered all the different aspects of this plan.

This new start time has caused many of us a lot of stress. Stress is also bad for our mental health. Teenagers can be stressed by the amount of time they have after school. With the new schedule, you have to learn to manage your time better. Another thing that I mentioned is when students have extracurriculars, such as sports, you have to practice many days and hours of the week. For students that get a lot of homework, sometimes they barely have time to do anything by the time they get home. An extra 45 minutes to do homework or something can change a lot.

By: Chris D. Salas & Ezra Agabra,  School News Reporters

November 10th, 2022

32ND ST USC MAGNET - The 2022-2023 school year at 32nd St Magnet has had a rollercoaster-esque start with the implementation of online rules and restrictions. These rules, such as the current phone policy, can and have been seen as incredulous by students and staff members alike. The reasons as to why these restrictions may have been inducted is argued by many students, but possible reasons can be the emergence of the Instagram account Mysterypics, reported cases of cyberbullying, or possibly even in light of the recent LAUSD district-wide hack. These restrictions have limited not only students' abilities to work, but the teachers that provide and teach as well. Luckily, it seems we can finally shed some light on this matter with the help of our very own high school-college counselor, Ms. Craig.

Many topics arose during our interview with Ms. Craig which included LAUSD’s Acceptable Use Policy, the cell phone policy, and the internet restrictions on school Wi-Fi.  We asked her a handful of questions, one being: Students have been having trouble with restrictions on the internet and how it affects their ability to work. Have you had any students come to talk to you about that and if so, what solutions have you come up with? And if not how would you propose troubleshooting? She responded with, “It has been a common problem, especially after this hacking event that’s happened. So, they become a lot more stringent with their firewalls and with who can get through and who cannot. It’s very frustrating for me as I oversee the online and the college courses. A lot of times, kids cannot access the videos that they need to watch in order to do the work for their college courses. So, that puts them behind. Then I get these emails from the teacher saying, ‘your kids aren’t working; they wait till the last minute,’ and it’s only because they can’t get through the firewalls to watch the videos…” “…this is just a domino effect. It sucks; I understand why they did it, however I don’t know what the solution would be.”

Some staff and teachers agree that the internet restrictions are a hindering factor to our students. The students here do not have the freedom of being able to pull their phones out in class to quickly search something up for their class if it is blocked on their other devices. Ms. Craig mentions this too saying, “...it’s very frustrating because, even for me, to just look something up and it’ll be, ‘website cannot be [accessed]’ Then I have to go to my phone, get off the Wi-Fi, and then look it up but it’s just another thing. I mean, you guys don’t have that leeway since we said ‘no cell phones.’ So it’s very, very frustrating and I understand.” Staff are understanding of the situation that students have with the internet restrictions and the cell phone policy. We also interviewed a few of our students to find out how they see the policies and their opinions on everything we discussed.

Angel is one student who's seen a lot but hasn't experienced much of the new restrictions LAUSD has put up. He stated that he's seen the scenarios described to him happen to other students in his classes but that they rarely, if not ever, happen to him. However, he has had this happen to him: When asked if he had ever been browsing the internet for research for a class project or assignment and had a website be blocked, his response was: “I think that happened to me once or twice where I was trying to do an assignment but when I clicked what I thought to be the best option for my research, it said ‘blocked by admin,’ or I just can’t access it or it says ‘not applicable’... I don’t understand why things like that might be blocked if it’s helping us understand what’s going on around the world or in schools.”

These problems can be minor annoyances and unnecessary obstacles that appear in a student's day to day life. The issue does not lie when just one of these problems happens but instead when these “occasional” problems become more frequent. Moving along to another student who had a few words to say on the matter, Cody Cartier.

Another issue voiced by students is why the policies aren't changed to better accommodate our school specifically. When asked, Cody responded, “Yes, we can rework the policies to keep the same effect while also fixing the problem with student happiness but it'll be more work on LAUSD which I feel is something they just don't want to do” Whether Cody speaks for other students or not, he voices his genuine understanding of the entire situation. In all honesty, it's an educated guess but that is partly due to the fact that many students are just unaware of why these restrictions occurred. An explanation could potentially appease student unhappiness and provide an understanding that Cody and others can get behind. All the current conflicts surrounding the new policies could be seen as stemming from a lack of information.

One final topic to be discussed is the general disapproval from students and staff on “having to play the bad guy”. The phone policy in particular  has created unnecessary problems between students and teachers, with students annoyed with having to follow the rules and staff having to confiscate phones, regardless of their standing on the matter. Sam Rizzo provides a bit of insight here.

While teachers for the majority have sympathized with students, there have been cases where the phone rule has been used to berate students. “Absolutely, I agree that the new rules have given more power to staff to do what they want, I have seen it firsthand myself, staff members using the phone policy as an excuse to yell at students”. Sam is just one of the many students who have voiced these concerns and it seems that may not change in the foreseeable future. A rule many disagree with combined with these situations can make for an extremely uncomfortable student body.

The online restrictions seem to limit students and the phone policies get rid of potential ways to overcome the obstacles created by said restrictions. When it comes down to it, what has the LAUSD District left for its students & staff but hardships and adversity. But even our own staff members are simply messengers, upholding rules created by a district who seems to have strayed from the wellness of its people. This article has hopefully answered some questions and possibly made you more aware of the situation we as students are truly in.