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Nathan Dean Lead Reporter Gabriel Fesehaie Lead Reporter

In a meeting held on March 7th, the Malden Public School Committee passed the motion to rescind the indoor mask mandate in schools with a 7-2 vote, which made big waves in the Malden High School community and beyond.

The motion to drop masks was not a shock. Given the fact that the mask mandate was dropped in all non-municipal buildings in Malden on February 4th— and many cities around Malden rushed to repeal their school mask mandates— it was only a matter of time before Malden dropped their school mask mandate as well.

The chamber room was relatively packed with seven of the eight school committee members: the Chairman Mayor Christenson, the Vice-Chairwoman Jennifer Spadafora, Superintendent Dr. Ligia Noriega-Murphy, the Student Representative Christelle Jean, and several attendees, including Forestdale School Principal Donald Concannon.

Mayor Christenson started the conversation off by giving the floor over to Jean, who presented information from a survey sent out to MHS students. It found that a majority of students who participated were not in favor of dropping the mask mandate. However, the survey was distributed before the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released information sharing that it is now safe for fully vaccinated individuals to not wear their mask in public, if they so choose. This ended up being a major factor in some of the members’ decisions. Mayor Christenson said, “if Christelle hadn't said that her survey was taken on February 11th I might not have voted to rescind."

Some school committee members cited information from the CDC, stating that with vaccination rates high in Malden, it was now safe to remove the mask mandate. Ward 5 School Committee Member Adam Weldai went on to talk about how the policy in place before the vote was first created and how that influenced his decision: "Our policy was initially created based on the recommendation and the advice from the Board of Health and based on the scientific data. It wasn't created based on feelings or politics or anything around the pandemic, it was created from medical advice and data.”

Jessica Li Reporter Mack Keating Reporter

With the Class of 2022 (CO’22) prom nearing, seniors are creating and implementing more fundraisers. During February, two of these fundraisers took place, including selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts and Valentine’s Day baked goods. While each class sale has had its own profits, the food consistently sold the best, hence the return of it.

The Krispy Kreme fundraiser is one of the more notable sellers, as it comes back annually. This is not the first sighting of a Krispy Kreme fundraiser for the CO'22, though. Back in December, the same product was sold for the same cause. During that sale, over $1.7k was raised, out of the goal of $10k. Due to its immense popularity and success, the product was brought back, with a raised price from $13 to $15 per box of a dozen doughnuts.

Editor-in-Chief and Class President Julie Huynh, Editor-in-Chief of Print and Design Carlos Aragon, Tivian Nguyen and Mayada Giha were among the myriad of seniors who helped run the table. In hopes of replicating the success of the first sale, the seniors restocked the product.

“The first Krispy Kreme fundraiser we had, we raised a lot more than expected. We were taken by surprise in a good way,” Nguyen explained. Huynh elaborated on this, noting the people running this behind the scenes. “We brought up the idea the first time. I think the fundraiser has always been something that the school has done before in the past, so we reached out to Ms. Quinn who used to run it. And then she kind of helped us get started with that and we decided that it would be something that we can definitely do.”

Class Advisor Daniel Jurkowski, who was in charge of the fundraiser, expatiated on Quinn’s work. “I was talking to her…we were talking about fundraising and fundraising ideas, and she brought up the idea of Krispy Kreme. So, we reached out to them. One of our student council officers, Mayada, reached out to them and got more information. And then, we just kinda went from there.”

This process was not as easy as it seems, though: the doughnuts are produced and stored in Connecticut, where someone must drive down in order to pick up and distribute the products. “Thankfully we have a dedicated advisor that was willing to go to his full extent to help the class out. We are very thankful for him for everything he has done. Without him, we would not be where we are now,” Nguyen professed.

Financially, fundraising is on the right track for their prom goals. “We made a good amount of money last time; we made around $2,000 the first time we did it. So, a couple kids reached out to us and asked if we were gonna do it again. And, it’s an easy fundraiser; we honestly don’t have to do much--too much work: so, just collect, sell boxes, we go pick them up, we distribute them and it’s basically free money.” He also stated, “We didn’t sell as many dozens of doughnuts as we did last time, but I would still say it’s a big success because we made over $1,400 which is perfect because it goes right to prom.” With the added price to the doughnuts, the class still made enough money.

“The purpose of the fundraiser is to fundraise as much money as we can for prom. Everything that we raise right now, every single dollar, is going towards prom--to make prom as affordable for as many kids as we can,” Jurkowski detailed. Currently, prom tickets are aiming to be under $80, with a ballpark range from $70-90.

Another issue Nguyen brought up was how “not enough people support or help the class, especially in our own grade. Whether it’s volunteering, helping us out, buying something small, we face a struggle in that.”

Jurkowski added another faced issue, that being “everybody [having] trouble fundraising the last couple of years - every group, every class, every organization within the school - so now everyone’s trying to make up for that too by fundraising at the same time. So, everyone, we’re trying to ask people for money, and everyone else is trying to get money too. So that’s been the most challenging part. It’s kind of, like, to come up with unique ideas that people want to spend money on. Because everyone’s trying to fundraise now, so that’s the most challenging part.” Continued on page 14

He added that “we have heard from our Board of Health that we are ready to make this move and I am cautiously optimistic. I am comfortable voting tonight in favor of that reason."

However, other school committee members expressed their concerns about the topic. Ward 4 school committee member, Dawn Macklin was particularly concerned that students who continue to wear their masks after the mask mandate fell might be bullied and ostracized. She was also worried about immuno-deficient students, teachers and parents.

Ward 8 school committee member Sharyn Rose Zeiberg and Vice-Chairman Jennifer Spadafora were quick to respond. Both pointed out that schools have other methods in place to stop the spread of COVID-19 that will remain in place after the mask mandate falls. They also claimed that the ability for teachers to teach without a mask significantly benefits students.

Prior to the vote, the parents and guardians of children were in frantic contact with the school committee. Weldai added “we’ve been hearing very 50-50 [split] down the middle." Weldai also noted a surplus of emotional content related to the vote during his comments, stating that he “wants to give special appreciation to those who chose to express their opinion in a constructive and respectful manner...this was the first time in a while we got a lot of the opposite.”

After all the school committee members who wished to speak had spoken, Mayor Christenson made a lengthy statement about the decline of the coronavirus in Malden, especially in the Malden Public Schools. Utilizing statistics from the CDC, the mayor stated that:

For the 16-19 age group, Malden had a vaccination rate of 73%,

For the 12-15 age group, Malden had a vaccination rate of 70%,

And for the 5-11 age group, Malden had a vaccination rate of 40%.

Compared to the national averages of 56.4% for the 12-15 age group, and 22.6% for the 5-11 age group, Christenson went on to praise the city: “Malden has really done a great job when you compare this to the national average.” He also continued to say that compared to the beginning of the school year, Malden has acquired many more helpful tools to deal with COVID, such as takehome test kits and vaccine clinics, which helped Malden to reach a point where they could consider taking masks off.

Following the Mayor’s remarks, the School Committee then proceeded to vote on the resolution to remove the mask mandate within the Malden Public Schools, introduced by Spadafora and seconded by Weldai. The motion was carried with Jennifer Spadafora, Adam Weldai, Micheal Drummy (who attended this meeting virtually), Joseph Gray, Sharyn Rose-Zyberg, Rob McCarthy and Mayor Christenson in favor, and with Keith Bernard and Dawn Macklin against.

Ever since that school council vote, faces have been more and more prevalent within the Malden Public Schools, as both teachers and students begin to take their masks off.

That was not the only popular food fundraiser, though. On February 14th, - Valentine’s day - the CO’22 organized a bake sale, with goods produced and supplied by senior vendors. Snacks such as cookies, brownies and chocolates were sold, along with a multitude of other options, for a cheap price of $1-3, depending on the product. The food was sold after school ended, as opposed to outside the cafeteria during long block like most sales, and the table flooded with students as soon as the time hit 2:15.

For over 10 minutes, students were crowding the table, trying to purchase something before they sold out. The four seniors running the table - Editor-in-Chief Lauren Mallett, Jennifer Wong, Sammi Nie and aforementioned Julie Huynh - were rushing to keep up with the excited energy of students and increase efficiency, due to the line. The line eventually dwindled, allowing the cash to be totaled.

Unlike the Krispy Kreme sale, the bake sale ran smoothly. “Krispy Kreme, one of the biggest challenges was getting people to buy it… The bake sale, I want to say was not very difficult, we always get people to donate, there wasn’t too big of a problem. We thought COVID would be a problem, but since everything was prepackaged, it was super, super easy, there weren’t any obstacles,” Nie distinguished.

Due to the success of this sale, Nie explained how the class plans to replicate it: “We also want to do more bake sales, as a monthly thing if we can. It doesn’t have to be specifically like Valentine’s Day.”

There are other fundraisers coming up as well, according to Nie: “a volleyball tournament, a dodgeball tournament, a basketball tournament, maybe a car wash in the future, as they are super profitable. We did one in June or July, and we raised at least a couple hundred.” The class also has a public GoFundMe page to help them reach their goal by May.

Without tracking expenses, the Krispy Kreme fundraiser tallied $1,413.75 and the Valentine’s Day bake sale raised approximately $350. Over the course of four years, $22,000 has been raised, with $12,000 from this year alone. To reach their fundraising goal, the CO’22 needs around $5,000 more.