Cherry Creek High School 9300 E. Union Ave. Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Journal The Union St.
Dec. 2018
Vol. 4 Issue 2
IN THIS ISSUE.... FEATURE
NEWS
5
PHOTO BY DA’NAZJAH DORSEY
Creek’s new world language class: ASL
STUDENT LIFE
PHOTO BY SARA ABBEY
6 Step Club gains momentum this year
8-9 Why do teachers care so much about cheating? Why do students cheat in the first place? How does this affect them?
13
SPORTS
PHOTO BY GIOVANNI MACHADO
A beginner’s guide to all things wrestling
14
OPINIONS
ART BY MAHKEDHA KALAYU
Read two stories about being black at Creek.
Find more stories at unionstreetjournal.com
@creekusj USE OUR QR CODES TO FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AND INSTAGRAM! COVER PHOTO BY GIOVANNI MACHADO PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GRACIE LORDI
2
Dec. 2018
USJ STAFF
Letter from the editor As someone who has avidly cheated all throughout my first two years of high school - sorry to all of my teachers - this issue’s feature story stands very near and dear to my heart. I’ve spent the majority of this year, my junior year, attempting to break old habits and learn cold, hard work. And let me tell ya, it is not easy. Becoming so used to never doing my homework or any extra work outside of class, it’s been painful forcing myself to do just an hour of math test-prep. As I created the poll for this story, I had the eye-opening opportunity to talk to other students who were living my struggle as well. It was so easy to not do work and maintain good grades in my underclassman years, and now, as we are beginning to pursue more analytical and theoretical ways of thinking, I feel like a 3rd grader trying her hand at AP Calculus. Not going to happen. However, with the new-found awareness that you actually need to do work to excel in school (crazy, I know), I feel that I have made great strides in my academic career. For example, college. A pretty anxiety-inducing thought, right? For me, it’s extra anxiety-inducing, because not only did I have no idea what my future held, I wasn’t even sure I was equipped to handle it. Now, however, with the intense focus I’ve been putting into my studies, I feel that I may finally have the attention span to actually read a book. Maybe even a textbook. But let’s not push it.
I think that this feature stands as a push from me to my peers, that sometimes it’s difficult to do something that A - you don’t want to do and B - you see no value in doing, but we need to trust that the little things are just as important as the big things when it comes to our education. This was definitely a tricky story to write because I didn’t want it to just be about the consequences of cheating and why it’s bad. I wanted it to show both sides, and produce a channel where students could understand where assignments that seemed to just be busy work were coming from. We also wanted to allow the teachers to show that they understand how tough it is to be a student. And although it wasn’t as eye-catching and taboo as our nudes story or our vaping story, cheating is just as applicable to the Cherry Creek student body. It’s so prominent and so normal and so easy to just grab the answers from a friend or online. I wanted to avoid the whole ethics argument of it all because I know that everyone has already heard it, and most people wouldn’t even think twice. People know it’s not fair, and people who think it is are just trying to justify their own actions. I already know that some students are going to scoff and say they already knew all this or it’s not going to stop them from continuing to cheat, but it’s critical to raise awareness that these little falsehoods are actually real game-changers.
Editor-In-Chief Gracie Lordi
Web Editor Hannah Edelheit
News Editor Jane McCauley
Layout Editor Bitanya Haile
Student Life Editor Da’Nazjah Dorsey
Illustrator Faith McCurdy
A&E Editor Chance Hausman
Advisor Yoni Fine
Opinions Editor Jacob Ginsberg-Margo
Staff Writers
Co-Sports Editors Giovanni Machado Matilde Marino
JJ Aquino
Photo Editor Olivia Burton
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
Boys’ varsity basketball plays their 2nd home game at 7:00 pm vs Chapparal in the South Gym. Dec. 2018
Makaio Frazier Harper Hanson Cole Paterson
Purpose The Union Street Journal is a student publication distributed to the students, faculty, and staff of Cherry Creek High School. The paper serves as an information source and a two-way communication forum for both the school and community. Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of Cherry Creek High School or the Cherry Creek Letters to the editor Letters to the editor are accepted and can be submitted via email to news.creek.usj@gmail.com Letters cannot be anonymous and they may be edited for clarity.
Peace and love, Gracie Lordi
COMING UP.... DEC.11
Sara Abbey
DEC.13
DEC.11
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
All choirs perform in the Winter Choir concert at 6:30 pm in the Fine Arts Theater.
PHOTO BY FAITH MCCURDY
Girls’ all level swim meet vs Grandview at 5:00 pm.
3
NEWS
Making the call Why calling yourself out is an issue of safety BY: SARA ABBEY & HARPER HANSON Staff Writers 8:10 am: It’s Monday morning in West Cafe. Senior Katie Northcott was not ready for class. She sat there as the minutes ticked down when an idea struck her: she could call herself out. “It wasn’t the first time I had called myself out,” Northcott said. She walked to a quiet corner of the cafeteria and pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She looked up the attendance number on the Creek website. After the phone rang for what seemed like an eternity, the automated message finally played and she recorded what she hoped to be a convincing message. “I just called from my own phone and said I was my mom and that I wasn’t going to class,” Northcott said. 1:12 pm: A note was delivered to Katie’s class from her dean. She had been caught. Ditching class is not a bizarre occurrence, but in order to avoid a call home for an unexcused absence, students are taking different measures. Students have been calling themselves out as their guardians to be excused. Normally if you miss classes without being excused it results in a automated call home, so even Principal Ryan Silva can understand the appeal. “You miss a class without your parents finding out that you missed a class…. because then you don’t get the robo call home”. Even though calling yourself out may sound like a phenomenal plan in the mo-
ment, it does have its consequences once you are caught. Calling yourself out is not seen as some desperate act to get yourself out of class; it is seen as rebellious and dangerous by administration. 1:25 pm: Katie Northcott received inhouse detention for a week, meaning she had to be at her dean’s office for every one of her off periods. “I just sat in a chair and did homework,” Northcott said. “The assistant was the one who made sure we checked in every time and let us go on our lunch break for the last fifteen or so minutes. It was during both of my off periods. We were allowed to have phones so I listened to music and drew or did homework.” Students calling themselves out is not a new trend. From the beginning of cell phones, it has been an issue, but now there can be penalties for these unexcused absences. During the time you are attending classes, the school has a responsibility of keeping you safe. This can result in both punishment for the one ditching and the school if something were to happen to you. “We’re responsible for providing safety to the students when they’re sitting here during the day,” Silva said. “So essentially, we’re your guardians during the school day, and we have to be able to account for you. Your parents assume that you’re under our guardianship.” Over time it has become easier for the school to catch kids ditching via calling
themselves out. Not only can the attendance office tell by the phone number but also by how student’s voices sound. “Their voice lacks maturity,” said Christy Heimbrock who works at the attendance office. When Dean Tom Doherty calls kids in for discipline, the atmosphere can be tense. “By the time they come in, the kids are usually pretty embarrassed,” he said. But Doherty likes to have a little fun with the situation by making them listen to their own voicemail. “I save those messages and always play it for them, and they’re always like, “uh…,” Doherty said. Kids calling themselves out is not unique to Creek, but is still a problem according to administration. “Our attendance rates were at 95.9% last quarter, making our attendance rates the highest in the district,” Assistant Principal Kevin Uhlig said. Calling oneself out from class is not as common as it sounds, but ditching has always been a large trend. Silva recalled the classic 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. “They made a movie essentially on missing school and being excused from missing that day illegally,” Silva said. Even though calling yourself in can be treated lightly, your whereabouts must be known to the school. “You’re with us, then we have to be able to account for you,” Silva said.
“We’re responsible for providing safety to the students when they’re sitting here during the day.” -Principal Ryan Silvia
“
I save those messages and always play it for them, and they’re always like, ‘uh...’ -Dean Tom Doherty
”
ART BY HARPER HANSON
4
Dec. 2018
NEWS
Speaking with our hands ART BY HARPER HANSON
BY: DA’NAZJAH DORSEY Student Life Editor Imagine walking into a classroom where everyone is actually interested in learning. Add some textbooks, a few elaborate hand gestures, and a teacher with a passion for the subject we get the American Sign Language class. ASL is a new World Language class that Creek is offering to students for whom in a lot of cases, Spanish, Latin, or French isn’t their usual cup of tea. “I’m not very good at spanish so I ended up dropping that class,” junior Ethan Cavanaugh who’s in ASL 2nd period said, “but then ASL became available this year, so it’s just fortunate that I happened to get in.” Cavanaugh had previous knowledge of signing, having transferred from Mountain Vista High School, one of the few high schools that offers ASL as a class available to students for credit. The class’s only teacher, Anne Zurcher, is someone with extensive background, passion, and motivation for the subject, even if this is her first year teaching ASL. “I taught deaf and hard of hearing chil-
dren at elementary school, in Denver public schools,” Zurcher said. On top of this being her first year teaching the subject, it’s also her first year at Creek, but she isn’t as new to the campus as one might think. “I have two daughters, one niece, and three nephews that also go here,” said Zurcher. She is also excited to be on the campus with family and friends. “I have a friend that actually works here at Creek that found out about the ASL class that was going to be offered. She knew I had my masters, and she kind of informed me about the job and I went with it,” she said. ASL started as one of the many clubs that Creek offered to students after school as just something that many used as a common space for sharing the knowledge or bonding with others that knew or wanted to know the language. This, however, was changed by juniors Rachael Murphy and Megan Haith that started this mission in their freshman year.
“Freshman year, we sat across from each other and would sign to each other across the room, annoying everyone,” laughs Haith. “So one day I went up to her and I was like I was thinking about talking to the principle about starting a class and she was like, ‘That’s crazy, so was I!’” Rachael Murphy laughs agreeing, “End of freshmen year we started to have meetings, beginning of sophomore year we continued to have meetings and it was mainly about what was going to happen with the class and why we wanted to do this.” They are both now in their final 2 years of high school and the club has officially been made as a world language credit class. But why is this silent class considered a foreign language if there’s no talking? World Language Department Coordinator Jamie Hofmeister explained the ASL class. “It made sense to be housed in world language with other world languages because it is another world language. It also has its own culture, which is a big part of what we teach in our
world lang. and ASL,” Hofmeister said. “It isn’t just a signed language, it has its own ‘english’ and its own syntax. So we thought it would fit very well with the rest of our languages and our whole as a department.” ASL is only one of many “dialects” all around the world, and even in some cases, it can change depending on which state you live in. “I learned to sign in Arizona and now that I’m in Colorado, I’ve had to take more sign language classes. So, it does vary a little bit,” Zurcher said. The addition of ASL to Creek is one that will hopefully be more promising in the future, since not that many students know of the change in this year’s options, but most are thankful and cheery of what most hope will be an impactful achievement. “I know I’m definitely excited to finesse the program and become more fluent in sign language,” Cavanaugh said. “It’s also cool to learn because not many people know it besides the deaf community.”
Finals schedule changes BY: MATILDE MARINO Co-Sports Editor
The last week of the semester is always a stressful time of year. Everybody wants to receive high grades, get out of school on Friday, and never come back for the next two weeks. However, what if they tell you that you are going to stay here more than expected, and that your vacation is two hours delayed? In fact, this year the schedule for finals week has changed from a half day of school to full day. When students found about it, they were disappointed. Sophomore Precious Bautista Alexander was upset about the change. “That sucks,” she said. “I think it’s stupid, staying here for a long time doing nothing.” However, school’s principal Ryan Silva has an explanation of this choice. “The State has to calculate the minutes that you guys are in school,” Silva Dec. 2018
said. “We have to turn in our schedules to the State, so that they know that we satisfied the minutes and that you guys are in school the minutes that you are required to be in school for public institutions. And if you are not, then we lose the fundings because we get fundings from the State.” Therefore, in order to have the minutes required in one year, the school had to decide what was best for the kids. “We talked about this as a district and there were a few options.” Silva said. “One would be to require every senior and junior to take six classes, but doing that right now is problematic. I don’t think it’s what’s best for kids anyway.” The other option was to change the length of the days during finals week. “So the short term fix, which will actually be the long term fix, is to make all of our finals days full days,”
said Silva. Math Department Coordinator Lawrence Dwyer explained how the schedule will work. “The first day, we have just two final exams. And then the second and third day, we have three final exams,” he said. Compared to the past years, the prep period is going to be longer, and that is what will make the days longer. In fact, finals will last the same amount of time, that is 80 minutes. The school tried to spread out the exams in order to avoid the issue of having students taking three exams in one day. “Hopefully, it’s set up so that most students will have two exams each day,” Dwyer said. “But you know, it never works out perfectly, so some will probably have them all three on some of those days.” INFOGRAPHIC BY JANE MCCAULEY
5
STUDENT LIFE
Let me hear you shout: Step team resurfaces BY: DA’NAZJAH DORSEY & SARA ABBEY Student Life Editor and Staff Writer The laughter quickly fades as junior Mykierah Lowe steps up and tells everyone it’s time to start practice. STOMP, CLAP, STOMP. Red blotches appear on their skin in the shape of handprints and tingly sensations travel from the dancers’ feet up their legs and to their souls. People line up to stare from the hallway, listening in on the rhythmic sounds coming from the dancers. The sight is one that can’t be ignored by any bystander or unexpecting student that walks by. And students are ready for a new team to bring something different to Creek. “I think Poms is just what you expect and it’s all about competition,” senior Alicia De La Cruz said. “And it’s not exactly fun from what you hear as opposed to step team which is just a lot better and they make their own team and that’s what I want to see.” The CCHS Step team is one that, until this year, wasn’t a Creek campus activity that was widely known about. It was the memo-
rable performance at the Homecoming Pep rally in Oct. that most of the school found out about the team made up of 14 girls. “I didn’t even know they were a separate team from poms, until then,” De La Cruz said. The Step team has just regained popularity among students at Creek in the last few years considering that the last active Step team existed in 2002. The team became active again last year, where it was run by students until asking Security Specialist Sheletha Anderson to be their sponsor in May. “My experience stems from when I was back in high school,” she said. “I was on the drill team, which is like step.” However new the team is to Creek, people in the community agree that watching the Step team perform just feels good. “Their dances really hype me up,” said senior Celine Ricardez, a student that attended the pep rally in the fall. “When the Step team first came out, ev-
erybody just started screaming,” said junior Michele Vasquez, another student who attended the pep rally. The girls on the Step team are unique and talented as well, considering the handful without extensive dance backgrounds, something Lowe, a co-captain, acknowledged as being the reason she is so hard on her team. “I have to be focused and I have to be stern with them because I want them to get it,” Lowe said. “I know they can. They’re very talented, fast learners.” The girls on the team are very proud to be in such an inviting atmosphere, “Being on the Step team is so relatable. I use to play basketball and I felt like I didn’t fit in with the girls on the team,” said senior Jonasia Johnson who was also on the Step team last year. “Being on the Step team with these girls is fun and I learn a lot from them. I’m so happy that I got to join this team in my last year of high school. It’s been a joy with these
lovely girls and I love each and everyone of them.” For those who don’t know what Step is, it’s a dance that is a combination of clapping, stomping, and vocals. Step was originally formed in several African communities in South Africa as a result of other styles of music, like drumming, being banned. And as more African people were brought to the U.S., step was morphed into the principles and rhythms of other African Americans. It began to take on some recognition by the early 19th century. Step teams aren’t really something that the average high schooler in Colorado would have knowledge of. Step is a percussive art that requires the performer to use their whole body as an instrument to express a message in the form of a beautiful rhythm and complex footwoork. Step today is a mixture of many styles of dance, including African, Caribbean, break dance, tap, and even gymnastics depending
PHOTO BY SARA ABBEY
THROUGH THICK AND THIN: So far, the Step team has been practicing on their own and has been looking for a club sponsor. “They are talented girls, I’m sure they will find someone,” Security Specialist Sheletha Anderson said. 6
Dec. 2018
STUDENT LIFE
on the team. Most step teams are known for being part of sororities and fraternities at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) all over the nation, which means a typical team is composed of mostly Black or African American individuals. Recently, the Step team has been overcoming obstacles that are threatening the structure of the team and the team’s future moving forward, but the girls want students to know, they’ll be fighting for the team to stay one and whole. In fact, if you listen to the chants of one of their routines you’ll see this message, even in such a small part of the performance: “Get up!” “Why?” “Cuz we ain’t done yet!” Susi Leisegang, a junior on the Step team sums up what the Step team is about. “The Step team is just a very new thing at Creek that shows the diversity of the school,” Leisegang said. “I’m glad that we get to express ourselves through doing it.”
PHOTO BY SARA ABBEY
SCREAM AND SHOUT: Junior Mykierah Lowe practices with the Step team outside the North Gym. “Step is my first team that I’ve ever taught,” she said. “It’s my only team.”
Students Against Gun Violence Club: making their voices heard BY: JANE MCCAULEY News Editor You read the headline of a news story about another mass shooting and try to understand the pain that the victims and families are going through, but there is no possible way for you to imagine. In this year alone, there have already been 323 mass shootings in America according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. The founder of the Students Against Gun Violence club, senior Maya Robbins, started the club this year for people in the Creek community to have a safe place to talk about their opinions on gun violence. “So we’ve been noticing that there’s a lot of dialogue about gun violence in the United States, but a lot of the dialogue is precluded by partisan motivations, and we wanted to discuss the issue beyond simply the left of the aisle or right of the aisle,” Robbins said. “This is an issue that needs a solution.” In other words, the Students Against Gun Violence club is concentrated on finding the middle ground between both political sides that will eventually solve the gun problem we now face. Students have a lot to say when it comes to how our country handles restrictions on guns. “Just talk about gun control and gun violence, and if someone tries to shut you off, just continuing talking,” Mohamed said. “Try to get the word because not a lot of people care.” Social studies teacher David Valdez also voiced his opinion on the difference between gun violence and guns. “In the big scheme of things, I am not opposed to people having guns. It’s more along the lines of the application of it.
Dec. 2018
So I think what they’re [the club] doing right is targeting the violence and not the guns,” Valdez said. For other people that want to get involved in bringing change to gun control, Robbins suggests that the club is a great way to start. “Last year we were just trying to get our feet on the ground, but this year we have more of an established agenda,” Robbins said. Part of their established agenda this year is to make their voice heard. The club of about ten students took action and decided to take their demands to the heart of the United States government. “We’re trying to write to Congress members about legislation pertaining to gun violence,” Robbins said. The club is really pushing to communicate with many important figure heads such as Congress members or people in the community who are willing and passionate about their opinion on the gun violence ideas in our country. “The aim of the club is to start this dialogue during a specific agenda,” Robbins said. To join the club, you don’t need any prior experience with activism, but the club is interested in members that are passionate about making changes to the gun laws and want to make their voice heard. Students talk about how engaging in conversation with others and just bringing up the topic will spread the word. “That’s the message that they need to keep hammering home: they have to be working together against gun violence and not working against guns,” Valdez said.
Read about another new club at Creek - the Linguistic Puzzles Club - by scanning the QR code below:
7
FEATURE
Playing with
BY: GRACIE LORDI Editor-in-Chief
Cheating in the ‘Digital Age’ “What is okay to take? Is borrowing your friend’s Netflix password the same as not really thinking through an issue. But thinking you’re informed and arguing for something, or voting. Where do you draw the line?” said English Teacher Matthew Gustafson. As the lines between collaborating, borrowing, and cheating are becoming more and more blurred, students are having a harder time understanding the harsh consequences. The addition of the internet creates a perfect storm for them to pull together any grades that may be dropping. Cheating is normal. Take a look around IC Cafe during 4th period. How many students can you count copying off of another student? In a poll of 235 students, 80% said they have copied before. While cheating is nothing new, it’s possible that the digital age has made us dependent on instant answers. “Your generation has grown up with the internet,” English teacher Stefanie Crecelius. “Your generation has grown up with Google for the answers, for everything. So, it might just be something that’s ingrained.” The internet rose to prominence in the early 90s, so not just students swipe easy answers and information from the web, but so do adults in all different types of jobs. “Once I had a meeting with a parent and a student, where
8
the parent had helped the student rip a bunch of stuff off the internet in order to construct this paper,” Gustafson said. “Her dad argued that it wasn’t cheating because he does it in his business all the time.” Six years ago, cheating at Creek was considered an academic issue rather than a disciplinary issue. This meant that the deans had no power over the consequences of cheating, only teachers did. As the internet rose into the foreground, answers became much more accessible and the influx of cheating outmatched teachers’ disciplinary tactics. “Before the internet became such an easy way for students to plagiarize. There was far less plagiarism. It required a lot more work,” English Department Coordinator Samuel Feld said. And with the new addition of instant answers - from professors’ PDFs to Quizlets and Photomath - the magnitude of academic dishonesty became watered down to students. “I think everyone knows it’s bad, but once you get away with it one or two times, it just becomes okay to do,” Crecelius said. “And I think it’s more common now. So, if everybody else is doing it, students probably think it’s okay.”
Why kids do it Knowing this, the addition of pressure and carelessness create the ideal recipe for disaster. When students are in a time crunch with a homework assignment due, and the answers are at the tips of their fingers, it becomes a simple A-to-B situation. “They think it’s not as big of a grade so it’s not as big of a deal and they’re short on time so they get desperate and just copy the assignment down,” Gustafson said. Sometimes it’s just a matter of time prioritization.
“Most of the assignments are really pointless, so not wasting time on one or two isn’t going to stop me from going to college,” Junior Aidyn Morelock said. All this being said, there are still plenty of students who don’t obsess over a grade and don’t cheat, like Junior Mitch Patton. “I do all my work and I study because it helps better absorb the information,” he said. “I may not get a perfect grade but at least I am learning more than if I just copied the work.” Feld agrees. As a teacher, he values the significance of learning over achievements. “I always want to see your work, no matter what level your work is at because, at the end of the day,” Feld said. “It’s not going to be the be all end all on your way to college.”
The consequences Creek has a strict zero-tolerance policy for students who get caught cheating. Any teacher who catches a student cheating is expected to follow protocol and contact the student’s dean and the department coordinator depending on which class the crime was committed to. Students are given two strikes. After the third, they are immediately suspended which is completely visible to all colleges, and, if asked, students must explain the altercation. In response to the emergence of the web and easy access to answers, administration instituted an expensive plagiarism detection service many students are familiar with - ‘Turnitin. com” Turnitin uses a private quote system and Feld wasn’t sure of the exact price for Creek. However, it typically charges between $1.25-$2.00 per student, according to the Financial Times. For Feld, it was well worth the price. Dec. 2018
FEATURE
Cheaters never win? So, teaching AP statistics, we were just finishing our unit on probability, so we had a big test, all multiple choice, but I had two versions of the test. So, one student got 100%, but on the wrong version of the test. Perfect score, but wrong version. And he claimed that he just guessed and just happened to get all 30 questions right. So, we made it a class exercise to figure out what is the probability that you just randomly guess all the right answers to the wrong test. -Math teacher Johanna Lewis
I had a student in AP Lit who plagiarized twice with me in my class. And the first and the second time I caught her plagiarizing she tried to buy a paper, and that paper’s author plagiarized. I had a college that contacted me, and I had sent a recommendation in earlier, and I literally called the college and said to them, “I need to tell you that the student has plagiarized twice.” That’s really serious academic dishonesty at the school, and she immediately got a note from the college that her acceptance had been withdrawn. -English Department Coordinator Samuel Feld
When I was a freshman, I was too lazy to do my homework, so I took a photo of my friend’s and printed out that picture, and I didn’t even cross out her name or the teacher’s comments. And my teacher caught me, obviously, and she said that it was such bad cheating that she was just going to let it go. -junior Aidyn Morelock
“Turnitin.com is extraordinarily successful, and successful in the way that students just know they’re going to get caught,” he said. “So as a preventative, that’s been excellent.” Creek has many advanced preventative strategies but, what happens when students don’t get caught? Despite many students getting away with cheating, Gustafson believes that the long-term effects of cheating are just as, if not more, detrimental than getting caught. “They’re losing out on the opportunity to gain those academic muscles that will help them perform on the test or help them perform on the one thing they wouldn’t even consider cheating on,” Gustafson said. And, in an even more long-term sense, how is this affecting students as they transition into adulthood? “When you don’t read the news or you’re not practiced in Dec. 2018
Have you ever copied off of the internet or another student for an assignment?
80% of students say yes
Have you ever cheated?
65% of students say yes
considering your sources, how can you tell the difference between real news and propaganda? When you don’t sit down and struggle through a difficult text?” Gustafson said. A common misconception is that copying an assignment from online or off of another student isn’t cheating. Out of the 80% of students who admitted to copying, only 65% had said admitted to cheating. However, the Bear Facts explicitly states that any sort of plagiarism or copying is academic dishonesty and should receive consequences equal to any other form of cheating. “It’s the same thing as cheating on a test,” Dean Tom Doherty said. “It’s the same thing as cheating, it’s academic dishonesty.” The only real variation between the degrees of cheating is the point-value of assignments. “If you plagiarized on a 200 point paper, your grade is really
poll of 235 students
going to tank,” Feld said. “And nobody’s going to give you a second chance. If you plagiarized on a homework assignment, yeah you’re going to get a zero, but it’s more going to be one of your strikes, as it were, against you.” Though the consequences of copying are more minimal short-term, in the long run, students can expect to find harsher repercussions. Many students do not realize the extenuating ramifications of their actions and a steep divide between students and teachers begins to form. “That’s the thing about instant gratification always,” Gustafson said. “You lose some measure of yourself that can only be gained through struggle.”
9
Marvel vs. DC
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
CHANCE HAUSMAN & COLE PATERSON A&E Editor & Staff Writer
Character Comparison ART BY FAITH MCCURDY
Thor is known as one of the stronger superheroes because of his relationship with the gods and the power of his hammer which promotes his bravery.
Ironman is a “Self-Made” superhero with advanced technology allowing him to have superhero powers although he wasn’t born with superhero ability.
Superman is known as one of the stronger characters on the DC side for his super strength and bravery in any scene.
Batman being a multi-millionaire heir from his parents, he was able to take that money and design special gadgets that he uses to protect and serve.
Captain America was a scrawny but determined soldier who was turned into the perfect warrior after a military experiment made him extremely strong.
Wonder Woman is an amazing warrior who will destroy anyone who gets in her way. If her physical skills weren’t enough, she can also force her vows to tell the truth with her “lasso of truth.”
Marvel vs. DC Movies
Stan Lee
In the past 10 years, Marvel has surpassed DC as the superior superhero movie prodcution company with its box office record-breaking movies including Black Panther, Avengers Infinity War, and Iron Man. DC was still able to maintain their reputation in the inudstry with movies such as The Dark Knight, Wonder Woman, and Suicide Squad. We asked Creek students which movies they prefer. POLL OF 300 STUDENTS
Plot
Characters
Effects
61%
72%
76%
39%
33%
24%
POLL CONDUCTED BY CHANCE HAUSMAN & COLE PATERSON
10
American comic book writer Stan Lee died on November 12th, 2018. Beloved by many, he wrote many prominent comic books such as The Hulk, The Avengers, Spiderman, and Iron Man. He was iconic for all of his cameos in the Marvel movies, television shows, and video games. His writing and art made a massive impact on the comic book community.
Dec 2018
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Feel old yet? Pop Culture Rewind
Wizards Of Waverly Place 2007-2012 Everything is not... what it seems! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you missed out on the the best five years in Disney Channel history. Wizards of Waverly Place was a Disney show that aired from 2007-2012. The show broke record after record with its imagination and excitement, while staying relatable to the young audience watching. I remember coming home from a long day at school. My mom would be cooking dinner, and I would be finishing up my homework at the kitchen table. The TV would be on in the other room and I could hear Selena Gomez AKA Alex Russo come on and wave her wand in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears before announcing that Wizards of Waverly Place was coming on. I would spring out of my chair and rush to the couch to watch this all-time favorite show of mine. Wizards of Waverly Place was a show about a seemingly average
family, but behind the doors of their sub shop, they were wizards. They had three kids: Justin, the smart “goody-two-shoes” of the family who only used his powers for good or when asked to do so; Alex, the witty, feisty, wild-child; and Max, the youngest, not the smartest, who never thought anything through. The show taught me how to love myself and all the things that made me unique, how to be creative, and how to feel powerful in my own way. In elementary school, I was shy and extremely insecure. Wizards of Waverly Place made me feel strong as a person. I embodied the personality traits of all three siblings, making Wizards Of Waverly Place the most influential show of my childhood.
-Olivia Burton
Hannah Montana 2006-2011 The best childhood memories were sitting around the TV listening to the “Best of Both Worlds” theme song and watching Miley Cyrus hide her double life on television. It’s been twelve years since the first episode aired on TV in 2006 and Hannah Montana was introduced to our lives. The show is based around a young girl named Miley who has a secret life as a famous pop star named Hannah Montana. Each episode is based on the ironic fact that no one around Miley knows her secret, yet they are all in awe of the famous star. There were always adventures for Miley, her best friend Lilly, Oliver, and even Miley’s real father Robby Stewart. However, one other person knows Miley’s secret: her best friend Lilly played by Emily Osment. Lilly is the complete opposite of her best friend in the way of being extroverted, loud, obnoxious, and very impulsive. Be-
“Baby”
sides the differences between their personalities, Miley and Emily are always seen getting along on and off screen. The show has been over for seven years now, but when the show ended, Cyrus ended on a positive note. “My job first is to entertain and do what I love, and if you don’t like it, then change the channel,” she said in an interview with Access. Everyone knows Hannah Montana. As we sat in our pj’s on a Saturday night watching her contently, we laughed, we cried, we struggled, and we sang with her. She was truly relatable. This show inspired us to chase after our dreams and work hard to reach our goals. Hannah Montana benefited our childhoods with her “best of both worlds” attitude, helping us to grow up and learn lessons alongside her passionate character.
Released 2010
In the late 2000’s you could have found a poster of Justin Bieber in any teenage girl’s room. He was a platinum-selling artist by the age of 16, and an icon for teenagers around the world. On January 18th, 2010, the world was taken by storm with Bieber’s hot new hit song “Baby” featuring Ludacris. The song rose to number 5 on the charts in the first 24 hours of release and stayed on the top charts for months afterward. By May of 2013 the song had sold over 3.9 million digital downloads and had become Justin Bieber’s iconic song. There’s no denying that our generation will always remember this catchy song. -Olivia Burton
Dec 2018
-Jane McCauley
“Party in the USA”
Released 2009
I hopped off the train at LAX, With a dream and my cardigan… “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus came out nine years ago, but it seemed like just yesterday when we heard it on the radio for the first time. Miley Cyrus had already became a popular figure in Hollywood with her start on her first TV show Hannah Montana, so her singing career really starting taking off when her hit “Party in the USA” came out in late 2009. The song peaked as number two on Billboard Hot 100 becoming the seventh best-selling digital single in America at the time. -Jane McCauley
11
SPORTS
Boys’ basketball adding fresh legs BY: MAKAIO FRAZIER Staff Writer As fall sports draw to a close the last of the leaves have finally fallen, the temperatures continue to drop, and snow has begun to litter the frosty ground. Winter has returned. Normally, fresh starts and new beginnings do not coincide with this time of year. Spring is the time for that. Although, in the case of the Boys’ Varsity basketball team, a sense of rejuvenation and new possibility permeates through the air. Entering his third year as the leader of the boys varsity basketball program, Head Coach Kent Dertinger is looking forward to the next opportunity to build his program. His system emphasizes an aggressive, defensive style of play. He will have to do so with a new generation of young and inexperienced Creek players. “Yeah, can’t wait to get going,” he said. After losing six seniors from last year’s team, the roster turnover allows for a younger core to make their mark on this 2018-2019 team. “There will be some big shoes to fill,” Dertinger said. Three former seniors, including star point guard Dimitri Stanley who is currently playing D1 football for CU Boulder, were starters on last year’s team. However, Coach Dertinger is not overly concerned as there are two underclassmen standouts looking to start on varsity. “We had a really strong freshman class last year,” Dertinger said. “Two of those are likely to start on varsity this year, as sophomores.” One of those current sophomores is Julian
Hammond. Anyone who knows Hammond can see that he has a calm, laid-back personality, but this year, as an underclassmen playing varsity, he knows he has to deliver. “When I play I just go out there to prove that I can play with anyone and everyone on the court,” Hammond said. “We’re an athletic team. We can get out and run [with anybody].” While the team may be young, Coach Dertinger looks to returning starter and current junior Sebastian Cole to take the next step in leading this team. “I have always been the youngest guy on the team and now that I’m older, I’ll definitely have to take a leadership role,” Cole said. He feels confident about the upcoming year. “We’re young, but we have really skilled players. We’ll be good,” he said. Coach Dertinger and his team know and believe that they can have a successful season, but their biggest obstacle may not be their youth, but league conference. “I think four of the last five state champions come from this league. There certainly is no weakness within our league,” he said. Overland, Denver East, Eaglecrest, and Grandview have all won the state championship in the previous 5 years. Creek is the only school in the entire conference that has not won the state championship since 2013. Defending state champions and Creek arch rivals, Grandview are headlined as this year’s team to beat. Many of Grandview’s starters will
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
ON POINT: Sophomore point guard Julian Hammond drives to the basket during the first game of the season against Boulder on Dec. 4. Creek won 73-49. Hammond, although he’s a sophomore, is a key player and starter for the team. be returning. No matter how the season unfolds, Dertinger’s ultimate goal is to get his young team and seniors to play in the Coliseum.
“I’d love to get the younger and older guys to experience that,” he said. “Once you’re in the round of eight we’ll kind of see what happens.”
Girls’ basketball changing their game BY: HANNAH EDELHEIT Web Editor
PHOTO BY HANNAH EDELHEIT
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: Coach Clint Evans concentrated during scrimmage. Their first game is on Dec. 12 against Doherty High School.
12
The fluorescent lights of the gym reflect off of the shiny wooden floor. You can hear the squeak of shoes and the noise of basketballs pounding on the court. The girls are running and stretching and warming up while their new coach gets organized before practice. They are preparing themselves for an exhausting practice that will shape them into better athletes. Coach Clint Evans has been coaching basketball for the past 14 years and has been a head coach for nine of them; he has just come from Kansas where he trained for all of his career. “I hope they just get better and better each day, just for the girls, and the Cherry Creek Program to reach their full potential,” Evans said. The girls are trying to achieve their goals with better conditioning strategies and more practice. The new strategies that are being implemented are weight lifting and running. They are also doing these strategies for preseason training to be able to become stronger and faster. “[Evans] pushes us to where we need to be pushed and you know, when we make mistakes we’re running for it, so it’s no days off,” Senior Bella Sparaco said. “He’s intense and exactly what we need for the program.” Evans is making the girls work harder to help them be
better athletes and help them be able to unite as a team to play even better. “He brings us together as a team. There is just so much more unity and more of a team bond, than before” Sparaco said. Evans also wants to focus on making the girls tougher and further their talent. “I know we’re putting in a lot more time caring about conditioning a lot more and toughness is a big deal with this group. We’ve got tons and tons of talent we just need to have better team concept and just better work ethic.” Evans said. Due to the fact that the girls are bonding and working harder, it can make them a better team for the new season to come. Sophomore Eliza Hill is happy that Evans is on staff because he is fixing the little things to help them create the best team possible. “He really cares about us and works us really hard,” Hill said. “And even though we are doing so much running you know that he is doing all of this running because he really cares about us, and he’s fixing up all the little things so that we can be a better team.” Dec 2018
SPORTS
Wrestling For Dummies BY: JJ AQUINO Staff Writer
ESCAPE:
Wrestling is a complicated and difficult sport. If you don’t know the rules, you might have a hard time trying to figure out what is happening. To help those who have trouble understanding what’s going on, Sophomores Daniel Gonzalez and Pierce Reisinger show what the moves look like.
REVERSAL :
What is it?
What is it?
“It is when you hold your opponent to their back for a 2 or 3 count.”- Head coach Michael Luhring. “It is when you keep their back at a 45 degree angle off the mat for 5 seconds.” - Junior Elijah Robbins.
“The guy gets me on the ground, on the mat, but he doesn’t have my shoulder blades to the ground, that’s backpoints.” - Sophomore Daniel Gonzalez.
“I’m in bottom position and I get up to my feet, but his arms are tight around me. I get his hands away and I’m facing him again.” - Sophomore Daniel Gonzalez.
STEP 2
STEP 3
2 POINTS
How do you do it?
“It is called a reversal when you are on bottom and you get from bottom to top. It is worth 2 points.” - Head Coach Michael Luhring.
TAKEDOWN:
“A reversal is where you are able to get from bottom position to top position by doing a sit out and getting out from underneath them.” - Junior Elijah Robbins.
2 POINTS
STEP 2
STEP 1
STEP 3
What is it?
How do you do it?
“You are taking control of the wrestler so that he can go down and you get 2 points for a takedown.” - Junior Elijah Robbins.
“A takedown is like a tackle, when you take your opponent down on their back, it’s 2 points when you take him down.” - Sophomore Daniel Gonzalez.
STEP 1
STEP 2
PIN : “A pin is when you have the opponents back on the mat, their shoulder blades on the mat and they can’t get up. That ends the game, its a couple of seconds and ref blows the whistle and again the match is over.” - Sophomore Daniel Gonzalez
Dec 2018
How do you do it?
“An escape is when you are on bottom, then go to neutral, and that’s when you are both standing up.” - Sophomore Hunter Gray White
STEP 1
How do you do it?
1 POINT
What is it?
NEAR FALL or : 2 or 3 POINTS BACK POINTS
What is it?
STEP 2
STEP 1
STEP 3
WINS THE MATCH How do you do it? “You need to have your arm around their head, and when you have that you need to have their face in your armpit, and have it tight, so they can’t scape.” - Sophomore Daniel Gonzales
13
OPINIONS
What it means to be black at Creek
BY: SARA ABBEY Staff Writer
Smile, but not too big or they’ll think you’re a joke Talk, but not with your slang or they’ll think you’re uneducated Take classes that’ll make your head hurt and your eyes droop, but they’ll never have a chance to doubt your intelligence. Being black at Creek means no room for errors when there are only three of you out of twenty-five in a classroom. Being black at creek means going to a school where the person who sits to your right is the son of lawyers and to the left of you is the daughter of doctors. Me? My dad drives a taxi and my mom is a caretaker. I’m not embarrassed. It just goes to show how hard-working of a family I have. But sitting next to those kids who already have one foot in the door to get to Harvard, it makes me feel as if I had a late start to the race. And being black at Creek means that you can’t be yourself: a stereotype that everyone is far too familiar with. Loud mouthed, rude, ignorant, trouble making kid who’ll start a fight at the drop of a hat. I’m constantly tiptoeing around other stu-
dents, worried that just my appearance itself has already given me a name. It’s always been a struggle but, being black at Creek has its benefits. For the few of us who are Ethiopian/Eritrean, we become a close knit community where we can speak our language and become comfortable in our own skin. It’s the small things like Black Student Union that make you feel a bit more whole when you’re surrounded by people that resemble you just a little bit more. You come into the club and a weight is lifted off your shoulders. No more hiding and fake smiles to others who’ll understand me just a little bit more. We have roles outside of that club, to individually keep up our reputations that we have spent too much time perfecting. It does become disappointing though when you walk by each other the next day without a hello. Creek has its ups and downs, its expectations and reputations, and definitely its powerful facade to the outside world that we are an inclusive, diverse, and wholesome community but that is unfortunately not the reality. We go to a school where conformity is the norm and differences become the outcasts. But I can’t really say much. I’m just like everyone else.
BY: DA’NAZJAH DORSEY Student Life Editor
Growing up I only went to majority white schools until the age of 11. I thought I knew what to expect when I came to Creek from Southaven, Mississippi: a bunch of sissy prissy white people that I would have to change my personality with in order to not seem so “black.” There are aspects of my upbringing that are what most poeple I talk to consider relative to the black experience, like fighting. I was always told, whether you started the fight or not, you better win or when you get home you will be in even more trouble. This obviously never aligned to what I was taught in school. Being split into both these worlds usually would take a toll on me as a child, but not so much now. As someone of color who wasn’t thrown into a black environment, I knew exactly how to deal with white people: make some jokes, be myself and over-exaggerate my knowledge on the black culture and I would fit in. As for fitting in with the black population, that has not been as easy. While I have noticed the black population at Creek, I haven’t really
met or talked to a lot of them. I’m not saying “them” to single out the population, but I’m saying “them” as in a lot seem to hangout and relate to each other and their own experiences. Most of the time I am too white for the black students and too black for the white students. The balance of my identities and my negative and positive experiences in both communities makes it even harder for me to fully identify with my culture. It’s the lack of a sense of community that really gets to me. Take that as you may, but a lot of reek students don’t really like or care for other students and that’s how it is in Creek as a whole. I would really enjoy seeing the black community at Creek be more inclusive and caring for one another. I’d like to see more unity rather than hanging out with their cliques at lunch and avoiding or ignoring any other black kid because they aren’t the same. Look, only 3% of the Creek population is black, and we’re not all the same. Some of us have unique backgrounds, I came from Mississippi. Some grew up in mostly white schools. Some came from mostly black schools. But we should be able to share our experiences with each other and grow together.
ART BY MAHKEDHA KALAYU
PRIDE IN YOURSELF: For some being a minority in Creek can be challenging. Of course no two experiences are the same. The above painting is one in a series by senior Mahkeda Kalayu in which she celebrates the individuality of black youth. 14
Dec. 2018
OPINIONS
Proud to be a conservative BY: JACOB GINSBERG-MARGO Opinions Editor
When you think of conservatives, what do you imagine? A heartless old crotchety man, who sold his first born for a few more dollars, and despises that women can leave the house? Well sorry to break it to you, but that’s pretty inaccurate, mostly. Actually, 36% of the political make-up, according to Gallup polls, isn’t as cookie-cutter nor evil as you may think. The Republican party, and conservatives in general, have kept consistent in their policies and ideology. They keep their same beliefs of low taxes, small government, and staying, well conservative. Many myths have popped up about the conservative party you probably noticed some in the first paragraph. Many, if not all, are just not true ,and as someone of the party, I think it’s my job to debunk some liberals with facts and logic, or maybe just explain conservatism, and why I agree with it. The common belief is that conservative is synonymous with Alt-Right, and although that Alt-Right simply stands for and is understood as, alternative right-wing politics, it has been given an evil, despicable name, by the frequent support of neo-confederates, neo-nazis, and other white supremacist groups. My rightwing is something completely different, and should not be conflated. Just so my words are understood, the Alt-Right is despicable and is home to some of the worst our society has to offer. So why am I conservative? Well, simply put, I was pushed there. I’d like to explain some reasons why. Firstly, alienation. I am a white man, I am okay with being a white man. My culture is diverse and full. I am proud of my race. Those few simple sentences could get you expelled from college or could land you in prison in England, according to the telecommunications act. I am so proud of American values that I truly and wholesomely believe that this country, the country that I am able to say all of
this without fear of prosecution from the government, is the greatest country in the world. But I can not be proud of who I am. When the phrase, “It’s okay to be white,” becomes a hate symbol and “hate speech,” I feel like a stranger in my own skin and my own life. Secondly, I’d like to talk about the stigma of the left, and what I see coming from it on a daily basis. I see screeching harpies banging on the doors of the Supreme Court. I see students and teachers in Brown University scared to speak their feelings if the ir feelings are not the leftist status quo. I see a teaching aid, a liberal teaching aid, being sent death threats, and being fired for showing a lecture from, conservative and psychologist, Jordan B. Peterson because The Leftist school did didn’t like what he said. I see the hysteria of left, and I want nothing to do with it. Thirdly, in my opinion, the country is stuck in a system of victims and oppressors, when there is none. People who call themselves liberal feel oppressed, and I can be empathetic to them. But I cannot be empathetic when the solution is not to build the poor, the huddled masses, the broken. It is to tear down the rich, the prepared, the smart and the strong. I can not sit by while the margins of who they go after, shrinks to include everyone I love, everyone I know, and everyone I respect, yet no one who deserves it. This all comes in the form of Neo-Marxism, which
is evil. For an example, Adolf Hitler, a fascist socialist, killed about 13 million people. Joseph Stalin, a communist, killed 80 million. Mao Zedong, another communist, killed 45 million. All three of the worlds most evil men ever to exist, were ruling with the ideals of Karl Marx. Fourthly, the current mainstream media is ruled by a those who swear to not be racist, or biased, but are increasingly taking a biased, anti-white stance (which if you didn’t know is racist). Don’t believe me? Look at some of the posts on Twitter from New York Times editor Sarah Jeong tweeting #CancelWhitePeople, or Don Lemon on CNN calling all white men “The biggest terror threat in the country.” Or finally “diversity quotas” forcing businesses to hire not on merit, as it should be, but on gender, sexual preference, and race, entirely excluding whites. That is actual racism, not some guy in Scotland showing his dog how to “Seig Heil.” Fifthly, policies. Arguably the most important reason I am a conservative. I don’t like the government. I don’t like the system. I don’t trust either. In the conservative party, the government is to be controlled by the people, not the other way around. I don’t like debt. I don’t like the country’s debt. I think we should tighten our belt and balance the budget. I love Israel. As a practicing Jew, the state of Israel is the second most important country to me, and
anything we can do to keep a stable, well functioning, strong ally in the middle east is imperative, as well as keeping a Jewish state alive and well. Lastly, I don’t believe in the greatest political fallacy ever to exist: the government should do things. The government should keep its people alive, and the country free. Lastly I am religious, and when a story breaks that a Christian student senator, Senator Isabella Chow, from Berkeley had her religious beliefs denounced as not beliefs, it pushes me further to the right. Teddy Lake, the student senator who put forward the original resolution to condemn trump’s language concerning LGBTQ+, that senator Chow abstained from, said this, “Perhaps what most offends me, though, is Senator Chow’s outrageous ask that we, as a Senate class, respect her “beliefs” as she does ours. To that end, I’d like to clarify that what Senator Chow expressed tonight were not beliefs at all — they were hateful prejudices that deserve nothing less than the strongest condemnation from myself, my community, and my colleagues.” I remind you that Senator Chow abstained. She did not vote down, she did not condemn the resolution, she simply refused to vote for it. I am a straight, white, cis, hetero, male, and I refuse to join a party that is actively against my existence, or commanding me to “check my privilege,” I refuse to believe that just because I was born with a certain amount of melanin in my skin I immediately am handed a White-Card that lets me not get shot by the police, because statistics from Statista, say that in 2018, 158 African Americans were shot and killed, and 318 White Americans were shot. That is 2 whites for everyone 1 Black. This tells me otherwise. I refuse to believe that my race is the issue with this country. I would bet all of my money that mainstream conservatives, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, Gavin McInnes, or Milo Yiannopoulos, do not advocate for political violence, racial violence, or systematic censorship, yet once again I am, and my party is, racist, violent, sexist. I just can’t buy it.
Freshaman Lauren Becerra
Sophomore Nathan Eckler
What political ideology do you identify with?
Senior Sarah Douglas
“For most social things, I identify as strongly liberal, but I think the connotations that the Democratic party has and the political separation that is happening in America puts me off from calling myself a Democrat.” Dec. 2018
Senior Mahkadha Kalayu
“Independent. I find that people have a lot of biases that go into choosing their political party, and I think that is important when it comes to objective issues to not let a subjective party decide that for you.”
“I lean toward more liberal, but I haven’t really labled myself as anything. I still have yet to explore what I believe in because I’m only a freshman, but I am definetly not a Republican.”
“I would say I am generally to the right. I don’t really have a specific thing because there’s a lot of different little sub-sections. Nobody is the same, nobody has the same ideology.” 15
Creek’s title run ends at Mile High
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
RUNNER-UP: Junior Jayle Stacks, Sophomore Gus Zilinskas, and Sophomore Arden Walker (from left) take a knee as Coach Dave Logan gives a post-game speech. Creek fell to Valor on Dec. 1 at Mile High Stadium 24-14, with Valor taking their 8th football title in ten years. “That’s the peril of playing in the Championship game: someone’s going to go home unhappy,” Coach Tom Doherty said. “I think the kids can hold their heads up high knowing that they really did battle and had a great season, and there is a lot for our kids, our school, and our community to be proud of.”
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
DEFENSE: Senior linebacker Jayden Triplett, sophomore defensive back Enoch Woolfolk, and junior defensive tackle Grayson Blackmon (from left) tackle Valor quarterback Luke McCaffrey as he attempts to escape the pocket on a broken play.
PHOTO BY GRACIE LORDI
SURPRISE SCORE: The crowd went crazy after a failed extra-point attempt turned into a two point conversion run-in by kicker junior Mac Willis. Thousands of students, alumni, and Creek fans packed the Bruin side of the stadium.