Around the world, but virtually School ‘Teams’ up with 15 countries for ‘21 summit By Emma Parker, Managing Editor
With the pandemic showing no end in sight and international travel not a possibility, the school has decided to host the biennial International Summit virtually. Schools from 15 different countries plan on meeting virtually over Microsoft Teams and YouTube on Feb. 1-5, 2021. Events and presentations will be scheduled throughout the week, and virtual host families will have the opportunity to meet international students one on one on weeknights and the weekend. Approved host family applicants will receive an acceptance email on Dec. 15 and will find out their assigned family on Jan. 8. Meetings for further information will be scheduled and sent out when students find out if they were chosen. Students were also able to apply to be
group leaders and group ambassadors. “I will definitely consider it this year, since it doesn’t take that much time to host since it’s online,” junior Antonio Saladrigas said. “I think it would be nice to get to know someone else and see how their country is dealing with the pandemic as well as just getting to know their culture.” Students who weren’t chosen or didn’t apply for an official role can still participate during the summit with in-class presentations, classroom visits and planned YouTube live streams. More information will be released to the general student body about specific activities planned for the summit after the new year. For specific questions, please email Assistant Principal Samaroo at jill.samaroo@ browardschools.com.
Jingyi Mei from Chongqing Fudan Secondary School plays the guzheng during the assembly in the gym at the 2019 International Summit. Fudan students also wrote a message in Chinese calligraphy to everyone who participated: “Peace and pure respect to Pompano Beach High School. We honor students from all over the world, and we will be family forever.”
PHOTO BY JEAN PAUL CARRASCO
E-CHEATING cont. from p. 4 possible to prepare students for standardized assessments. “It is a challenge,” Mumtaz said. “Testing is not a number one priority right now, and it shouldn’t be. Right now we are trying to get the best out of online education and are seeing if we can try to do the best we can as though we were in person. Our teachers are working extremely hard, most of them are working longer hours to accommodate our students. So testing is not a priority.” While AP scores remained at about normal levels during online tests at the end of last year, other standardized tests given at home indicated that students were getting outside help. “I’m telling you, from last year to this year, (in) elementary (students), dramatic increase. I mean it was such an increase that you’re 100% sure that Mommy and or Daddy or older brother or sister (helped out). There’s just no way that kid goes from … barely having phonetic knowledge, to being able to write four paragraphs. We’ve seen that, and we talk about. But unless we put the camera on the whole time … there’s kinda not too much we can do about it,” school board member Nora Rupert said. The same issue has been seen here, as tests and classwork have become essentially a formality for some students. “(I have) never seen so many students getting these high scores on the tests, but hey, maybe this is my lucky year and I have all of the awesome hard workers in my classes,” social studies teacher William S. Strachan said. The ease of cheating has left some worried about the return to in person learning and to the long-term effects of being handed easy grades. “People are becoming dumber, and people are not giving a (care) about school. Yeah, things need to change,” Catoni said While cheating has become especially easy this year, the issue is not unique as schools have dealt with it for as long as they have been around. “You cannot be naive and say, ‘Cheating would not have happened if this was in person or if we are back to normal,’” Mumtaz said. “It happens all the time. Yes, it probably happens more often now, we are hoping students will not do that.”
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